The empire of Equestria is falling apart, and the only thing that can stop it is the Yoso no Chowa. Ancient blades able to save the world in times of need. And if wielded by a true Hero, Evil will never prevail. But Death came for Starlight.
Starlight Glimmer escaped the massacre of her hometown and death as a Stranger calling herself Twilight Sparkle saved her life from the corrupt Royal Equestrian Army. Now the Yoso no Chowa must be located before Empress Celestia can find them, and save what's left of their beloved country.
Starlight seeks to become a Hero to her people, Twilight only seeks to take that which Celestia had taken from her. Two forms of Justice is better than one. But who will stand by who when the time comes to face their fears, and who will be the wielder of the Yoso no Chowa?
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Interesting, very interesting. I'm honestly curious to see how this continues so for now have a like.
7938322 Thank you good sir!
What is this a crossover of?
7938621 ... It's... Not...?
An interesting idea. Would like to see how the authour develops this idea.
This is cool. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.
This fanfic's premise is promising. That first chapter is well written. I am hooked.
My god... this is amazing!
Give me more!
So...
Twilight's a badass samurai.
Sweet.
I really like this. It could use some editing, though. I'm always up to edit a story I like! That is, if you're interested in having my help. :V
7940425 Sure!
Mistaken for a crossover? I'll have to give this a look.
...
Okay, this is a pretty well-used AU tag. Definitely interesting, have a track. Quick editing tip, though: any time you have a ... in dialogue that could be replaced by a , and still make sense, you don't need to capitalize the word that comes after it- it's not a new sentence, it's a pause in speech. Try not to use them at all in narration, though. There, they're just a cheap way to build tension. Similarly, avoid stacking multiple ! and ?. !? is fine, !! and ?? don't add anything.
There's also a good deal of other random capitals that don't need to be there. The commander's eyes were Dark and Cold? Dishonor your Mother and Father? Stuff like that. Stranger also doesn't need to be capitalized, since you're using it as a descriptor and not a name.
Finally, it's a little tough to tell what's going on at points. Are the samurai doing a good-cop-bad-cop routine, or are they just really easily offended? Even though their boss called them wretches and they were fine with that? Also, why does the stranger drop her weapon when the commander threatens to kill Starlight... but keeps fighting the mooks regardless? If she's calling a bluff, why not keep her weapon? If the threat was real, why didn't Starlight croak when she didn't surrender? And she's apparently got telekinesis, why not free Starlight instantly with that in the first place?
7940496 Thank you for telling me that, I'm still learning how to write, and maybe you could help me understand why capitalizing in certain places is not okay. I personally think some emphasis on certain words is okay for me to capitalize. (But that's just me, I've had people tell me before that it's not necessary before, but I obviously didn't listen.
) Also I still need to learn how to properly use , ... and ; . I'm always confused how to use them. 
And to answer some questions on the story... I can answer most of it by saying I started this story in a place that needs explanation, there is a lot of questions as to what happened in Ponyville before this to answer, and they will be. But I don't understand the "telekinesis" part. When did I imply Starlight could do that? ... Oh the wisps thing, those are just spirits of Starlight's ancestors. A lot of Japanese stories have that kind of stuff, and I thought it was fitting. And sorry to say this, but you won't understand why the samurai acted the way they did until I explain it in a later chapter. I really don't like spoiling things.
7940564 If you want to emphasize words, use bold or italics. They tend to flow much nicer- capitals are specifically for signifying a sentence change or that a word is something's name. You can also put words in ALL CAPS for loud noises, or in SMALL CAPS for... weird cases, like when eldritch abominations speak. But also watch what you emphasize- emphasis says something's special, and if there's nothing actually special about what you emphasize, or your readers at least can't figure it out, you'll just confuse them.
Commas are weird because they're essentially a single punctuation mark that gets used in a ton of different cases, so it's impossible to give a succinct explanation of exactly when to and when not to use them. Fortunately, your commas are relatively clean here, so they don't need much work.
Ellipses (...) are much simpler, fortunately: the main and only thing you want to use them for is signifying a pause in speech. In real life, people tend to talk pretty messily and split their sentences, back up, trail off all the time, and brains are really good at sorting through that to get rid of missteps and figure out what others really mean. There are two ways this translates in writing.
The first is character dialogue. On the one hand, it's perfectly realistic for your characters to lose their trains of thought and trail off or switch what they're talking about mid-sentence. On the other, it's also somewhat distracting to the audience, who would usually prefer something that's easier to read than something that's realistic. My rule of thumb is to keep speech coherent- no pauses, no stammering, no fumbling for words- as much as possible, and only let characters get careless in situations where they're extremely emotional or distracted (especially if they're crying).
The second time someone is talking, though, is the narrator. Since this is a third-person, past-tense story, you have an impersonal narrator who's not a character and is recounting something that happened in the past. Age-old societal convention says if you're telling a story for the enjoyment of others, it is bad form to be any more attached to what's going on than your audience... and since you can't control your audience, that means you're completely stoic. As a result, you never want to narrate the way you'd normally talk. Making dramatic pauses? You better have a really good reason. Don't ask questions, even rhetorical, and if you're answering a question you think the audience might have, don't phrase it as an answer. For all the audience should care, you don't even exist.
...That goes out the window when you're narrating someone's thoughts, but they're not in dialogue form, though. For example, if Starlight is looking around and you want to describe what she sees, she's not going to think, Oh, there's a tree, and there's a rock, and there's another tree... Nobody thinks like that in real life (well, probably a few people, but not the majority). You have to narrate it, but since the narrator is stepping into her point of view and narrating her train of thought, you can say what she thinks- and that includes the pauses.
tl;dr: ellipses are good when characters are talking and have a reason to slow down, pause or fumble for words, but not when the narrator's talking- except when you're narrating a character's train of thought.
Semicolons have two main uses. The first is when the second statement clarifies the first. As an example (styled after this story, but not pulled from it):
The two parts here would work as separate sentences; both are complete and separate thoughts. But by joining them together, You specifically say the first is because of the second, and things make a little more sense. Mind, it's almost always possible to phrase things in ways that let you not have to use these without losing any information, so it's not like they're critically important.
The second big semicolon use is when you have a list of items that would usually be separated by commas... but the items contain commas themselves. In that case, you separate them by semicolons instead, so it's clear where each item is but you don't have to rework them to take out the commas.
This telekinesis:
Now, the problem with making confusion an intended reaction is that the audience doesn't always know whether something's unexplained deliberately or accidentally. Short of having the narrator wink at them, the best way to deal with this is to make things so it wouldn't make sense if they did know what's going on- fix your viewpoint to a character who's confused, and let the audience know they're confused. Not knowing why another character's doing what they're doing doesn't usually bother the audience when they're only in the headspace of one character, and have no way to know in the first place.
Right now, though, you jump quite frequently between Starlight and her savior's perspectives, which removes your ready-made excuse for withholding information (the character doesn't know). In general, it's best to only switch viewpoints in scene transitions, and be very careful when getting into the headspace of a character who knows things you don't want the audience to know.
intresting gonna keep track of it
Sorry for the hiatus my pony bretheren, and sisteren... Whatever, this hiatus won't be as long as the last one, Just like one week, maybe two tops! I just want to improve my writing before I continue Twilight of Iron. Because I want this to be a really good story!
Thank you for liking this story so far, I do too.
- BackroundVoice
7946447
Don't worry, you are far from some authors who let their stories tagged "Incomplete" for years, without giving any news.
I shall wait till you return! I think that this has potential
Saw a few glaring errors but i'm too tired to point them out.....
8593037
Yeah, do that in the morning when you’re awake. Criticism is best served after a good night’s sleep.
Good chapter again. I wonder what are Twilight and Starlight’s ages?
Oh hey, I remember this. Fun to see it again; glad it's not dead.
Wouldn't Twilight have had a much easier time with that fight if she had used her magic?
8593412
Yeah but it wouldn’t have been as interesting.
To me, anyway
happy to see this updated waiting for more
I like this. Nice that Twilight does seem to have a few flaws even if she is playing the badass role.
I may have said it previously, but I love samurai adventure. I shall eagerly await a new chapter.
9004874
The goal is to finish this one soon and then The Symphony of Combat before starting a new story in November. I hope to not end my time on Finfiction as a hiatus writer.
This has been sitting on the shelf like a fine wine and i am eager to sample more of this brilliant fic
Time for the lavender samurai to take a pink initiate!
Why is this on hiatus?
And so Twilight joins the Unreasonable Amount of Swords club. Previous member include Date Masamune and Homura.
Looks like the lavender samurai has amends to make.
It’s a good thing Twilight has some major differences from her canon self. She would test the blade on any pony available for further data.
9011830
How observant my Ebony hoofed friend
By the emperor....
You've gotten my attention...
9048034
I’ve been waiting all my life to be recognized by the 40K fandom... I can die happy now
9048357
That comment made me grin like an idiot, XD
9048361
As it should
The plot thickens.
Bad Celestia! Her former pupil will punish her one day!
How very petty. At least wait to see if he had screamed when making the cut.
A crimson mane, yet blue eyes. So a mix of Daybreaker and Celestia?
I am saddened to see this fanfic cancelled.
9632708
Same
9634789
Why did you stop by the way?
9635065
I stopped because I wanted to become an actual author.
Writing fan fiction is super fun, and it’s rewarding to read what people think of my writing and how I tell a story. But you can only grow so much from that. I really enjoyed writing here because it’s honestly such a great formatted website and it’s easy to use.
But one reason is definitely that I didn’t want to write for the fandom anymore.
The original idea for Fighters Don’t Have Friends was just to make an excuse to have as many fight scenes as possible for me to write. And I loved it. Action I believe is one of my strong suits, but because I wrote the plot point of keeping Twilight in Ponyville, tons of people were making it seem like I hated Twilight.
But she’s truly my favorite pony.
I realized then that I was writing for the wrong group of people. The brony fandom hates conflict, I however don’t care. Of course, regardless of how I or some people feel, I was still received more positively than not on all my stories.
But no matter how good my stories became, it would always still be a fan fic.
I believe fan fictions have helped me grow as a writer, but not as a story teller.
So I decided through much thinking that it would be best to end my time as a fan fic writer and try to create something truly original and beautiful.
I regret the most that I never continued Twilight of Iron, but sometimes you need to know when to give up on a story and devote yourself to something more worth while than yourself.
Because if I wanted to write something that I wanted to read, I’d stay here and never write a real book.
But I believe more strongly that story telling and writing is an art form. And like any other art form, it should never be about what I want.
Neon Genisis Evangelion is the perfect example of a piece art that the original artist had no idea what he was creating. To this day, people are still talking about it and learning new things from that show that Hideako Anno never intended people to feel.
It was art that truly came from his heart.
And same thing with most Ghibili films, and books like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter.
I want to be like George R. R. Martin who creates a story for people to take and grow from.
But I don’t want to be a selfish writer like J. K. Rolling.
Because she made something that truly inspired people, but she doesn’t see it as a piece of art. She sees it as her thing to be whatever she wants it to be, which is why she keeps saying certain characters are gay or a different race when that was never supposed to be the point to begin with. And technically she did make it, but when you create something, be it an idea and giving birth to a real person, you have the responsibility to help it grow, but once it is made, it isn’t yours anymore. It’s the world’s.
We as humans take what we want out of a medium of art in order to better ourselves inherently. In a sense, we take art as a gift.
Cartoons, Books, Movies, Food, Speech, Opinions, even People are all pieces of art to see and experience for ourselves.
And I want to do that. It’s stupid hard, but it’s what I think is best for me.
I want to write stories, that are not for me.
-sighs- Welp.... Now I am incredably depressed this was one of the stories I was really looking foward to it's completion.
9637464
Well then, could you at least tell us how this story would've ended?
9680193
Empress Celestia eventually comes to ponyville to see her former student one last time.
But before that, Twilight sends Starlight away beforehand so that she doesn’t get hunted. Starlight runs into Lightning Dust who is deserting the Empire in order to escape its tyrannical rule.
Both resolve to return to ponyville to help Twilight.
In the meantime, Twilight attempts to kill Celestia with the Yoso no Chowa only to have them shatter on impact.
We then learns from this that Empress Celestia is the nessisary evil of this world and by the laws of harmony, cannot be hurt or killed by them. Where as Twilight doesn’t quite fit into the prophecy in order to counteract that. This is proof by how she bleeds when she cuts herself with the blades, marking her as one of the many the Yoso no Chowa deems unworthy or evil.
At this point, Twilight is about to be killed by Celestia’s royal guard, it’s here that Lightning Dust and Starlight help distract the army so that both Twilight and the residents of ponyville can escape.
The final fight is this act is between Twilight and Lightning Vs the pursuing royal guard.
In this fight, the royal guard is too fast and strong for Lightning to handle and she loses her right eye to a katana. Twilight then takes up that fight along with her own against the second guard and decides to make a gamble with Starlight’s life.
She brings the Yoso no Chowa down on Starlight and we learn that just like Celestia, Starlight cannot be harmed by harmony or fate.
Twilight then uses the shattered pieces of the Yoso no Chowa to levitate the blade shards into a tornado and practically blenders one of the royal guard.
This leaves the other in retreat as our heroes lament that they lost the battle officially, but gained victory in saving the villagers of ponyville in the escape.
Starlight’s relationship with Twilight grows more distant as She not only almost killed her for the sake of a gamble in breaking the swords but also in refusing to open up about her past and explain her hatred for the Empress, earning only distrust from Starlight and Lightning.
We end this act on a bitter note as we confirm the our protagonists aren’t exactly heroes but they’re all this dark world has in the face of an evil that is seemingly destined to exist.
Epilogue: Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, Celestia is tasking four generals to to hunt Twilight down and kill her, including Starlight and Lightning.
These four are described as Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, with a fifth foreigner that is gladly taking up the bounty with them in order to kill Twilight.
This foreigner is Apple Jack and unlike the other four who are Samurai, AJ is from this alternate universe’s equivalent of America. She is a sharp shooting rifleman in alliance with the Empire, which sets things up for Act 2 of 3.
9680193
Another reason I’m stopping is because I lost contact with my main cover artist. But this is more of a minor point as apposed to the real reason you’ve already read.