Twilight Gets Ambushed... Repeatedly
Twilight was heading out for her weekly visit to her parents' house. Little did she know, an ambush was waiting for her. In fact, several ambushes from various nobles who wanted to see if she was as tough as she was supposed to be were waiting for her.
That is, until a quest popped up from the environment. The game had been convenient like that.
'Prove Your Ability. Fend off all the Fighters waiting to ambush you at various points.
Fighters. Those with more skill at fighting than your average Thug, but less than a Thug Lieutenant. Generally they act as mercenaries.'
She accepted, and was suddenly glad that Spike had stayed to organize the section of the library she frequented. Namely, the tower she lived in. The mini-map was swarming with enemies, and the counter was over 100.
*** Head goon's perspective ***
The job was simple enough, wait for a lavender filly with a purple and green dragon who'd be walking along this route today, draw her into this alley, and prod her into a fight. Probably some more inter-house politics, but he didn't care as long as he got paid. The others were the same. They'd been warned (and paid extra for) the fact that she was apparently pretty good at fighting.
They were primarily a motley lot in terms of equipment and training, but he and a couple others of this particular group of 8 were good enough to give some of the intermediate level Royal Guards a beating. Plus he'd gotten some armor recently that was strong enough to take the weight of a cart falling on it and not be scratched.
He'd noticed a lot of other groups moving about, but he didn't see why he needed to worry about it. She couldn't possibly be good enough that it would warrant the entire underworld in Canterlot being put on alert. Speak of the devil, there she was now, though the baby dragon wasn't with her.
She was humming a tune and smiling slightly. He didn't see anything to be concerned about, she was 12, how bad could she be?
He approached her. "Excuse me, could you come with me a second miss?" he asked pleasantly.
"Certainly." she answered. He suppressed a shiver, he had suddenly gotten the feeling that she knew about the ambush. That was crazy, how could she possibly know?
***Twilight's Perspective***
An earth pony had asked her to come with him, and though she was well aware that he was a Fighter leading her into an ambush, she didn't want to fight in the middle of the street either, so she played along. Honestly, did she really come across as that gullible?
She followed him into an alley, and found herself surrounded by a group of 8 that was a mixed bag of races.
"Sorry, but we were hired to knock you down a few pegs." the pony who led her here said, before pulling out a small knife.
The other Fighters followed suite with their own weapons or charging up their horns.
Twilight simply smiled... and beat them all more or less effortlessly. Each awarded 12 Exp/Bits. It appeared this was another quest where reducing their HP to 0 was only a knock-out. The counter was now 142, she'd level up at least once before this was over.
She walked down the streets toward the various ambushes, and wiped them out. She reached level 8 by the time the counter dropped to 100, but since she'd level up again before the quest was over by her calculations and she wanted to see a noticeable improvement in her ability in comparison to these clowns she waited on spending her points. When she reached level 9, she spent the points in Stats and Skills.
'Str 50, Int 51, Agi 50, Con 51, Will 39, Regen 50, Wis 38, Chr 40, Lck 38. HP 840, Shd 50, MP 994.'
She was mainly focusing on raising her first four Stats and Regen, sine they were the most influential on her abilities so far. She also raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 50/1000, while she raised Positive Magic to 58/1000. For Combat,
'At 50 or more, you're more skilled than most fighters who are in the Royal Guard or are mercenaries.'
For Resilience,
'At 50 or more, you won't be hurt by jumping from the second floor of a building.'
For Blade-wielding,
'At 50 or more, you can out-duel a regular swords fighter even with a much smaller blade.'
She was noticeably improved after that. Unfortunately she was very late by time she beat the last of them. That left her sprinting to her parents house, all but ignoring the game when the quest completion pop-up appeared.
She was awarded with 100 Exp/Bits and 4 Skill points that she used to raise Positive Magic to 59/1000, and Combat, Resilience, and Blade wielding to 51/1000.
She was gasping for breath when she reached the front door, she opened the door and went inside, closing it behind her. Her father turned to her, presumably to reprimand her for being late, when he stopped and stared.
It was at that moment that Twilight realized that she'd forgotten to wait for the minor wounds she'd sustained to heal, or clean the dried blood off her face.
She was loading her last save as soon as she got past them. They weren't supposed to find out about this facet of her life.
"Twilight... what happened?" Night Light asked.
She struggled to come up with a convincing story, since telling him what had actually happened couldn't possibly end well. To make matters worse, her mother walked in, after gasping, she rushed over to Twilight, and began to use several healing spells on the cuts and bruises, while demanding to be told what had happened.
Twilight was out of other options, so she rushed past them, and went up to her room, before using the bed to go to the main menu.
She decided she really needed a rest from all this. Perhaps it was time to use some of the other Avatars.
'Mercenary Twilight unlocked. This version lost her parents at an early age, and became a mercenary for hire, generally being employed in the Gryphon and Minotaur KIngdoms. Unlocked by defeating over 200 enemies and reaching a Combat skill of 40 or more.'
Yeah, not using that one. Which one was she using first though? Genius, Swordsmare, Pegasi, or Earth Pony? She eventually decided to do Pegasi, Earth Pony, and Swordsmare, then Genius. Swordsmare would let her polish her combat skills, after she studied Earth Pony and Pegasi magic in close detail. Genius would then give her more insight into their workings.
She selected Earth Pony in the Avatars this time. She wondered what exactly it would be like, not being able to use spells.
*** A Month In ***
Well, not being able to use unicorn magic was not fun at all. The superior attitudes of the other nobles towards her family for producing an earth pony was ignored for the most part. Some ponies just weren't worth the space they occupied. She was not really bothered by insults directed at her anymore.
She was quite interested in her magic as an earth pony, and was soon able to control it and use it for the feats mentioned in the description, and greater ones. She could make a full grove of full-grown trees, though it exhausted her. She experimented on herself a great deal, and found out a lot.
She was essentially taking a vacation for this Avatar and Pegaus Twilight, so she didn't do any quests. She ended up becoming Celestia's student after a particularly impressive feat of Earth Pony magic. In which she made a grove of trees grow for the first time. She informed this version of her mentor of her situation as well, including the fact that she was originally a unicorn.
She had found a number of different books available in this version of her life, and once she'd gotten what she could out of them, she switched to her Pegasus Avatar.
Weather manipulation was interesting, and cloud-walking was convenient. She was quite glad the sneering attitudes of the nobles, while not completely gone, were less pronounced towards this Avatar. Though that implied that they thought of ponies in a unicorn, pegasi, earth pony hierarchy.
She essentially proved to be the pegasus equivalent to her unicorn self, able to control an entire storm system, and, though trumped by Rainbow Dash, a fast flyer. She found more books that hadn't been in her baseline, and sucked them dry as well. She had to admit, she really like flying.
Her experiments were getting her a great deal of new information she was sure wasn't in the books. She could perform experiments with an understanding of the other types of pony magic, and she could do experiments she wouldn't be able to on others because she didn't have to worry about killing herself and she had her own full compliance.
She once again became Celestia's student, and informed her mentor of her situation after she controlled that weather system. She was sure she was sure she was close to a breakthrough with magic in general. She thought about skipping straight to Genius, but decided to wait. Swordsmare would likely have some books that could use studying as well.
When she thought that she'd gotten all she could out of her Pegasus Avatar, she switched to Swordsmare. There, the timeline began to deviate significantly from Basic. Each of her Avatars had come with a slight personality shift. Earth Pony had been less nervous, Pegasus had been a bit more short-tempered, but Swordsmare was a lot different. She was a lot more interested in weapons, and was actually somewhat keen to fight. Enjoyed fighting even.
She did her best to tamp down on these urges she felt were uncharacteristic of her. Though she did display her 'talent' with blades in order to join the Royal Guard with her brother. She was quite glad to learn some new tricks for fighting, both with and without magic. She climbed quite high into the ranks between her high combat ability, and tendency to follow orders to the letter. She even garnered the attention of the Princess, who had been watching her spar with a more senior member in front of the new recruits.
She had showed off a bit, she was embarrassed to say. She'd moved out of the way of an a thrust, (they were of course using practice swords) and then back in the way, only to redirect the force past her, and counter with a blow that snapped her opponent's wooden blade.
Since her Combat and Blade-wielding were 10 points above even what was expected of a captain, he could handle most of the members of the guard fairly well before she'd been taught their techniques and combat style, and now that she knew it, she could exploit the holes in it. There weren't many unless you were much more skilled, like she was, but they were there. The lesson here, was that no style was invincible, except perhaps a style that was of switching between dozens of other styles on the fly.
She had found that the Royal Guard had a personal library of techniques, in addition to the books in the library that hadn't been there in her other Avatars' worlds. She had to reach a certain rank in order to access most of them, and so, settled for mastering those that were available to her, resulting in a much improved combat ability, and a style that as a hybrid of her own improvised style and the Royal Guard's. It was an all-rounder style, it was good at everything, but not a mastery of anything.
Once she'd reached Lieutenant rank, she could access the advanced techniques, and was asked by the princess to become part of her guard. She accepted, and notified this version of her predicament as well. This one was slightly less accepting, but soon believed her. She achieved the rank of captain at the age of 14, the youngest ever. She had a month to study the highest level techniques, before the princess sent her a letter saying.
'Captain Twilight Sparkle, I would like you to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. Please try to make some friends, there aren't any rules against it.'
Well, as much as she wanted to see her friends, she still wanted to give Genius a spin. Perhaps Politically Savvy could help with her problems with the nobles in Enhanced as well. She nodded to herself, deciding that she should wait, despite the fact that a little voice in the back of her head was saying she was getting as bad as she was before she met her friends. She was not, she'd make it up to them, though they were unlikely to ever find out.
She'd only told the princess because she was over 1000 years old and could be expected to handle something like this without going crazy or anything. Staring the realization that your life was a game and therefore pointless beyond being amusing for some being who was watching you struggle through your life was not something she wanted to happen to them. She was not telling her friends.
*** Several Months as Genius Twilight later ***
She'd done it. She'd figured out how to use the other two races magic as any one of the three pony races. She'd become the princess' student again in this way, informed her mentor, and found a star.
'Str 51, Int 52, Agi 51, Con 52, Will 40, Regen 51, Wis 39, Chr 41, Lck 39. HP 860, Shd 50, MP 1017.'
She raised Positive Magic to 62/1000.
'At 60 or more, you understand magic better than most ponies ever will, including most scholars.'
She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 52/1000.
She'd even managed to teach a select few of each race to use the other races magics, though these generally had to have large mana pools and intellects to be able to use even minor amounts of magic that was not their race's.
She consistently found herself struggling to dumb the method down so anypony could use it. It was difficult enough to make it possible, making it simple was proving insurmountable. She was practically buried in her research, though she had hatched Spike since she'd been able to locate his egg, had access to unicorn magic, and convinced them to let her hatch his egg this time.
She had not, unfortunately, been able to do so, since she had not had those prerequisites in Earth Pony, Pegasi, or Swordsmare.
This time, her personality was much the same, but everypony else was about 10 IQ points more intelligent than Basic. The libraries were much larger and had a ton of new books that she read in her spare time. Once she'd sucked this one dry too, she moved on to Politically Savvy.
The nobles were downright obnoxious in this Avatar's world compared to baseline or even Enhanced. She did however, benefit from her mentor's tutelage in the political arts. Once she had given her mentor the explanation of her predicament, she suggested that Twilight use this to repeat the Politically Savvy Avatar until she had decades of experience. She responded by saying, "That's what you said the first few times too." with a slight smile.
She was getting that Cheshire smile mentioned in the description, a quirk for this Avatar, but she did her best not look to unhinged. She also noticed that quests she'd already accomplished didn't show up again, so the Main Quest for becoming the princess' student never appeared. Probably to keep her from taking too much advantage of this function of the game. Once she had technically had 30 years of education and experience with politics, she finally returned to the Main Menu to try that day she'd left Enhanced at again.
She'd unlocked a few new Avatars, it seemed.
'Royal Guard Captain Twilight. This version rose to the rank of Captain and was stationed in Canterlot. She's sent by the princess to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, much to her confusion. The reason became readily apparent when Nightmare Moon sealed her elder sister in the sun, and announced that dawn would never come. The captain tried to fight her, but found herself outmatched. Unlocked by reaching the rank of Captain in the Royal Guard.
Politician Twilight. This version is a master politician, and one of the few Avatars that might break away from Princess Celestia. She's signed a treaty with the nobles that amounts to this: They leaver her alone, she doesn't ruin them all and take all their possessions and land holdings through a series of legal maneuvers no one but a master lawyer could even hope to block. That's how dangerous she is. Unlocked by obtaining at least a decade's experience with political machinations.
Magic Thief Twilight. This version can copy a spell and even a different species' brand of magic simply by seeing it. Unlocked by learning magic of at least two types. (Unicorn, Pegasi, Earth pony, Draconiquis, etc.)'
Right, let's try this again. She thought as she selected Continue, and chose her Enhanced Save File. She'd named each Save File after the Avatar who she'd been using when she saved.
She was quite sure she could manage to take care of the Fighters without the whole debacle that followed this time... hopefully anyway.
'Chapter Progress: 1 quest completed. 1 star found. 500 exp to next level.'
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Only Pinkie Pie can send Twilight into flaming form at will.
doesn't she have save files?
stop them, beat the leader to a pulp, threaten to kill him horribly if he doesn't say who hired them. reload your last save.
"Princess. Noble slime hired some thugs to attack my family latter today. Can you do anything to help me stop them and make noble slime pay for this?"
just my own thoughts on how to deal with the situation.
And they attacked her with weapons when she gave them chances to leave, that trial would have been brushed aside.
Interesting concept but it's so stiff. If you don't mind, it's like reading the journal of someone level grinding a western RPG, a lot of stats and little emotion.
4565963
It's stated in one of the chapters that she saves every night.
Yay, rage mode Twilight finally makes an appearance.
4566056 Yes, but that was the chapter after the one I'd commented on, if you'll notice.
4565893 Twilight is above save scumming!
4566056 When I read that I thought it said she shaves every night and I was wondering if I missed an important chapter...
4566200
And there are a few stupid ponies that are stupid and also nerds.
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/325645056/hAF3C4F4A/
See that, it's a... a redundancy and a oxymoron... Oh I amuse myself.
4566330
No, you didn't. The only explanation for this sudden onset of shaving is... *inhales deeply*
DINKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERG!
4566574 quickmeme.com/img/cc/ccd74152f1ca7c492544a965003bb852ece3740d275b35e05ce410caa64c8f2f.jpg
4566720
oi40.tinypic.com/140dj7n.jpg
4566737 images5.fanpop.com/image/answers/2371000/2371870_1327197803746.12res_387_300.jpg
4566744
No, Blame Sweetie Bell. Her cooking is so bad its omnipotent.
4566753 True. If I ate her cooking, I'd shave my tastebuds off.
4566755
no, if you ate her cooking your tastebuds would voluntarily leave you to your fate.
4566760 brandslide.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PizzaPieer.jpg
The goons are died.
This is getting good! definitely and upvote and favorite!
can't wait for next chapter
She aint quite hit super saiyan yet.
This one feels more like Kaio-ken X 3.
A new, really good story that updates fast. I've been looking for another one of these. Thumbed and followed.
I know some people are saying to put less stats since it disrupts the story, but ,and this could just be because I am a shameless optimizer when I play RPGs, I LOVE the stats since it lets us see a little into her psyche. Also I love the different messages that come with different levels of the skills.
Also, is it just me or is she going to have a lot harder time getting the Elements since she already knows her friends so might not be great at restarting the friendship. Does that make sense?
Keep up the great work.
Not sure if I called it or influenced it...
(I posted a comment that she would flameshift literally last chapter)
Very, very Yang. Insane melee combat. Now all she needs are shotgun wrist guantlets!
4568939
Things get explained in chapter 5.
Reminds me of a Naruto fic I read a few years ago.
The idea is good, but the execution is mediocre at best. There are too many simple grammatical errors for me to take this fic seriously. Try rereading carefully through what you've written, and get a proofreader and editor to fix mistakes you missed.
Aside from the grammar, the pacing of the story is very erratic sometimes going into, albeit shallow, detail over trivial occurences and completely skipping over very important parts of the narrative. Twilight feels as if she needs to wait until she's four to do anythng, alright. That seems fine, she can go through the early parts of her life carefully figuring out the intricacies of the game she's been dropped in. However, the very next line simply states **four years later** while the reader is left confused on what exactly was the point of stating Twilight's thoughts if nothing was accomplished by them?
I will continue to read and follow this story, just hoping that someday all of these inconsistencies and errors will be remedied.
4569043 if you ask me a lot of the points you made are how i feel when i am playing a rpg
also i a agree that the stats are a bit jarring you should put a character sheet at the end of each chapter
4569183
How do you think Twi feels?
Well, we don't really know because there isn't a whole lot of characterization in this story yet... hrm.
4569008
This is also true of all of the npcs so far. You would think there would be more than the flat, taking it in stride behaviour of, well, EVERYONE in this story, including Twi herself, should such a situation happen for real.
My writer side wants to jump in and rewrite the script to all the dialogue and reactions in this story for him. >.<
4565899 This is this story's problem in a nutshell. It's got so much potential, but it needs a lot of polish to make it shine. Still, it's impressive given the author's age, and I must give them props for that.
Overall: i.imgur.com/L7wWROk.gif
4568932 But there are thugs that the royal guard are having troubles with....
Hey, great story! Got me intrigued. If you need a proofer, (or an extra) PM me and I'll be happy to help!
That was part of a quest, so and it required turning them over to the guard. However, in non-quests (and most quests for that matter) if your HP hits 0, then you're dead.
4568712 Yeah, I've been thinking about how to go about that, she could try to avoid the various crises that happened along the way to the castle, but then how would she get that connection to her not-yet friends?
On the other hand, isn't it immoral to knowingly put her friends through life-threatening situations (admittedly ones they've survived before) just to activate a set of powerful magical artifacts?
I know some of you think that she's become a sociopath... and you're kind of right. She'll get better when she gets the girls back, temporarily at least.
4569008 She'd died protecting Celestia, and that's going to make things awkward for her, especially since they were kind of in that situation because Celestia and her friends, and even Spike, sided with 'Cadance' over her.
I really like this story. It would be awesome to see a little more into how she feels about reliving everything and the fact that she realizes that she is integral to Equestria's destiny. It will be nice to see how the other mane six will relate to OP RPG Twilight. I hope to see a lot more of this story!
4570166 But at the same time she knows that they'll be fine since it's essentially a time loop. They all managed their aspects of that journey on their own the first time around, there's no reason for her to expect history won't repeat itself.
And she can always load her save if it doesn't work out.
4570144 Suggestion: let her unlock a new cheat that lets her see the "unconscious" threshhold on everypony's health. Or one that lets her pull her punches so an opponent is always left with at least 1 hp. Or maybe the latter would be a new Active Skill based off of Combat.
4571490
I concur!
4571936 You are correct.
4571992 You mean the one that started when he was 6? Because that was one of the first video game plot stories I ever read, so in a way, you could say that I was a bit inspired by that.
Incidentally, I have no problems with someone writing their own story based on this premise. Heck, you can copy the first couple chapters and diverge from there if you want. I don't mind. Though I would appreciate it if you told me about the story so I could read it.
4572062
FanFiction
Harry Potter: Game of the Year Edition
(I believe this was what you were asking for, yes?)
Don't stop where you are going with this. Besides, it's good to see a fun story that isn't going to suddenly stop being written for misc reasons.
I can't wait to see Twilight's interaction with the other girls.
4572318 That's sum good shit boy, although it seems like they've gotten buffed and the achievements are definitely harder to get, it seems more "realistic" in comparison to games like World of Warcraft with the Insane title requiring hundreds of hours of reputation grinding, or the Bloodthirsty which requires a total of 250,000 honorable kills which can take years without a premade group of people or extreme dedication and free time.
And in the game of Life, there can be no easy path to domination and power.
4572507 Yeah, This was all before I read the rest and how it was a destiny mix up rather than an actual game.
4572652 Please don't explain any further, i'm only on chapter three.
So I have no idea what you're talkin' about
4572669 WHOOPS! Sorry! Kinda wasn't thinking....
4571936 O.K., I think that I know what you're talking about.
Oh my gord, Rainbow Dash better be this badass too, or I will be PEEVED!!
Interesting premise, and the last few chapters have gotten much better.
One suggestion: unless it's a key plot point that Twilight advances or gains some new skill in the middle of a situation, move the leveling up and improving to the end-of-chapter notes, and let most of the story dialogue be entirely in-character.
I'd also suggest that Twilight really needs a lot more characterization. You've given her a few character traits, such as protectiveness, but apart from that she hasn't started picking apart and analyzing her situation very much. When she revealed things to Celestia, she mentioned her theory for why she got this second chance, but it would have been nice to see her original thoughts coming up with that.
It makes sense that she might have treated her life in Canterlot until now as a training exercise, mechanically trying to get powerful as quickly as she can; it's also been a long time since she was a filly in Canterlot the first time, so she probably doesn't feel very close to anyone there other than her family, Celestia, and Spike. However, she's incredibly close to her friends in Ponyville, and I'm hoping that she plans to act like it. She probably shouldn't tell them about the Game, but she could certainly take advantage of her newfound abilities to help her friends and avoid problems she encountered the first time, and likely encounter new ones instead (or hit the original problems by a different path).
One thing... (for now)
The changelings...
One evil hive?
Or multiple hives with some bad and some good?
4573695 she could tell Pinkie, unless she already knows...
Now... the moment I've been waiting for...
MORE!!!!!!!!!
This was pretty much my reaction to every. single. word. spoken by every. single. character. in this chapter:
That's basically what I was thinking of each character the moment they so much as opened their mouth. It was painful. Just, no.
That entire fight, no, this entire, ridiculous side plot of evilnobleclichepony is beyond SoD breaking levels of contrived, and I can't wait for it to be over. I mean, I guess I did laugh at how Spike brought a doctor in literally less than a few seconds at the most (and they couldn't, you know, get some guards or something?), but that's pretty much the only part I enjoyed. Everything else, from Twilight, to the cliché evil nobles, to Celestia pretty much blaming Twilight and Twilight agreeing (goodbye decent characterization for Celestia...), to Twilight freaking abandoning her family ("Oh and because you were attacked, you now have to move away and not let anyone know where you'll be, and I'm no longer going to visit you because *&** you that's why. Oh yeah, and, love ya!") instead of, I don't know, having some freaking guards protect them!
I know Twilight's been raising her stats, but she seems to be constantly getting more and more idiotic as this story goes on, and so does everyone else for that matter. In fact, maybe that's why all these stats and levels seem to have no effect on Twilight; because they're actually making her worse at everything!