As I flew through the wild skies above the Everfree Forest, I pulled in a hissing breath. I hurt all over. A quick self-scan with my psychic abilities revealed no serious internal trauma--nothing that wouldn't heal, at least--but I was going to be a single mass of bruises beneath my fur for the foreseeable future.
My thoughts turned to my fight with Discord. For some reason, despite delaying Discord long enough for the Elements of Harmony to regroup, I felt a deep sense of shame at being so utterly outclassed. I had not made a good showing. Thinking back, I was pretty much played from beginning to end.
Discord was wily, to say the least. He was completely and utterly unpredictable, every action unexpected, every attack at an angle I couldn't predict. He was a creature that had spent millennia honing his chaotic craft, millennia of practice in using his magic to his own ends.
By contrast, I was very much an inexperienced fighter. I had never been in a true, no-holds-barred fight before, not one that I remembered, at any rate. And I had never before used my psychic abilities in anger. Insanity, yes. But anger? No. Beyond that, I had not been in the best of shape before my transformation, and I doubt a thousand or so years encased in stone had done me any favors.
My biggest mistake, I'm sure, had been jumping into a fight without a plan. Especially against one such as Discord. He was not one to be beaten by brute force alone.
Which brought me to the crux of my next problem. There were things out there that scared Discord, I was sure, and if I were to survive any such encounter, I needed to train. Oh sure, I had technically spent centuries practicing my psychic abilities, but I was encased in magical stone at the time. The vast majority of my powers were unavailable to me, and what I was able to access was mentally strenuous and taxing to use. While I had been able to hone my control to near perfect levels, that had been with using only a trickle of power. Freeing myself from the stone had turned that trickle into an ocean. Using my telekinesis now was akin to trying to ice a cake with a fire hose. I was lucky that my telepathy was largely unchanged.
Then there was the matter of Pokemon moves. I had been unable to learn any at all: during my rampage, I was in no state of mind to even try, and later, my mystical stone prison had barely allowed me to use my telekinesis and telepathy, let alone mold that strange inner energy that Pokemon used (Aura, I think it was called aura, if my memories aren't too fuzzled).
But that led me to another problem. I was strong. Like, retardedly so. If I were to train, I needed a place that could stand up to my abuse, or one that I wouldn't mind destroying utterly in my quest for better control.
Sighing, I looked down to see a series of ruins scattered across the forest floor below. A half-remembered memory came to the fore of my mind, and inspiration struck. Chuckling, I bled off my forward momentum and allowed myself to drift down into the ruins. Alighting gently upon the ground, I looked around.
I stood in the courtyard of a crumbling stone castle. It had been magnificent once, likely with tall walls, towering towers, and waving pennants. But now, it was just a pile of moldering stone.
This, if I wasn't mistaken, was the abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters. Or, at least, I think that's what the name was. Again, as I'm sure I don't need to remind you, my memory of things from Before were spotty at best. As I had said, this was magnificent once, though you could hardly know it to look at the overgrown stones lying about. But, as I walked about (well, less walked and more hovered just off the ground: my legs weren't quite positioned properly for comfortable bipedal locomotion) taking in the still intact foundations, I could see the potential. This place, it had a palpable history to it, a weight you could feel. For centuries, it had stood as a bastion, a bulwark from where power was levied. And soon, it would be so once again.
Setting my feet on the ground, I held out my arms before me, closed my eyes, and concentrated. I needed a place I could safely practice my stronger abilities, and I also needed to practice my fine control. And what better way to achieve both--
I opened my eyes to see a multitude of stone blocks rising from the forest around me.
--than to build my own castle?
Slowly, I began to move my arms, and as a conductor conducts a symphony, the stones followed my movements. I started slowly, carefully so as not to damage anything and to make sure all the pieces fit properly in place. But, as it turns out, I didn't need to do any of that. For centuries, perhaps even millennia, this castle had been exposed to, and in some cases enchanted with, untold amounts of unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, and alicorn magics. In addition to the wild magicks of the Everfree Forest, this place had been the resting place of the Elements of Harmony. And all of that had changed the Castle of the Two Sisters.
The stones were alive; perhaps, not in a manner you or I would understand, but they possessed a consciousness of sorts. Time and magicks unimaginable had transformed the citadel into a Genius loci.
And it wanted to be whole again. I was willing to oblige: if it would let me make a few changes. It agreed.
Great blocks of stone sped by at breakneck speeds, crisscrossing over and through the paths of other blocks in a massive storm of flying rock. And there, at the eye of that storm, wreathed in the blue flames of my very own St. Elmo's fire, I stood. Standing there at the center of it all, watching ancient walls rise anew. It was spectacular, and I hardly had to do a thing: the stones knew where they belonged, all I did was let them move on their own. As the walls rose high, massive trees from the Everfree and within the ruins themselves came floating in, some still dropping clumps of dirt from where they'd been uprooted.
Immediately, the trees were divested of limbs, roots, and bark: my psychic powers stripping the trunks down as the Genius loci showed me what to do. Concentrating, I split the bare trunks into planks and beams, while at the same time, the discarded branches and limbs were rendered down into bundles of wood fibers. Meanwhile, the different barks were all put aside for later processing and organizing.
With the beams and planks complete, I raised them into place, creating a framework for the roof. Then, following the Genius loci's instructions, I fused the wood together, mimicking the spells used to do so in the original castle so long ago.
Slowly but surely, the castle came into being at my own hands--paws, until it towered above the ancient trees of the Everfree Forest. Finally, the last piece slid into place, and the castle was complete...mostly. I didn't have the benefit of plundering the minds of various scientists and engineers like the original Mewtwo did, so the castle lacked any modern utilities, like electricity.
Lowering my arms, I let out a breath.
"That was exhausting."
That was what I meant to say. What came out of my mouth though, was this: "Mef mef mefme...Mef?"
Mef? I was baffled at the sounds that came out of my mouth for but a moment before the obvious made me press the heel of my paw against my forehead in exasperation. I was Pokemon. They...er, we can't talk. Well...I suppose we can, but learning to speak as a human--or pony, as the case may be--was a long and arduous process. Fortunately, I was a Mewtwo: I could cheat with telepathy. With that in mind, I turned my attention back to the castle.
It needed a name. It was no longer the Castle of the Two Sisters, left to rot in the wilds of the Everfree. Now, it was my castle, my fortress, my citadel. It deserved a new name. One befitting its new status. I reflected back on what I could remember of the original Mewtwo.
In the anime, Mewtwo-1 had been created on New Island, where upon reaching maturity, he had destroyed the lab there and left the island. Later, he had returned and built a castle on the island. Luring powerful trainers to the island, he had sought to replace all Pokemon with his own "superior" Pokemon clones, only to have a change of heart: thanks to a young boy, he came upon a revelation about the beauty of life. Abandoning the island, he had taken his clones to an unnamed caldera in the Johto region, where he later left to travel the world. There was at least one other Mewtwo created by a third party, but I don't believe they ever stuck to one place long enough to be associated with it.
In the manga...actually, the less said about the manga, the better. Gym Leader Blaine being a partial (after-the-fact) clone of Mewtwo was just a little too weird for me.
As for the game (and the much later Pokemon Origins anime), Mewtwo-1 had been created in a lab on Cinnabar Island, where he had then performed the standard destroy the lab and leave act. I don't know what he did after that, but once you beat the Elite Four, he is found in Cerulean Cave.
Hmm...Cerulean. I smiled. Yes, that would do. That would do nicely. I raised my arms to the high ceilings above. From now on, you shall be the Castle Cerulean.
Judging from sensations that lingered at the edge of my mind, I'd say the castle approved.
Still watching the sky where the strange felinoid had vanished, Twilight Sparkle's mind raced. That creature was something that wasn't in any of her zoology books, and yet, she was certain that she knew it from somewhere. But where?
"Well done, my little ponies."
Twilight and the other five members of the Elements of Harmony turned around to see a radiant pony who shone like the sun. Twilight cried out a gleeful greeting. "Princess Celestia!"
Princess Celestia, Solar Diarch of Equestria and immortal alicorn, smiled gently down at her six subjects. Her silken mane and tail waved as if a breeze, an ethereal aurora of pink, green, and blue. Great wings were tucked at her sides and her long horn glistened in the sun. She wore a gold tiara on her head, a gold mantle on her chest, and golden slippers on her hooves, but those all paled in comparison to the way her pure white fur gleamed, or the way the picture of a sun on her flanks seemed to glow.
Her radiant smile turned into a small frown as she took in her subjects' expressions. "Whatever is the matter? Did you not defeat Discord?"
"Oh, well we sure did, Princess," remarked Applejack honestly. "But we had a bit of help."
Celestia tilted her head, looking down at the six mares. "Help? What kind of help?"
"Well, Ah'm not rightly sure," Applejack responded quizzically. "Biggest darned cat Ah ever done seen, though."
A look of worry crossed Celestia's face. "Cat?"
"Oh yes Princess," Rarity interjected. "It was quite a fetching shade of purple."
Worry turned to dread.
"I've never seen anything like it in any of my books, but I could swear that I've seen it before..." Twilight trailed off as she caught the expression on her Princess' face. "Princess?"
Celestia took a deep breath. "We best take this inside. Twilight, is your home available?"
Twilight was taken aback at the shaky timber to Celestia's voice. "Well, yes...why?"
"I'll explain soon, Twilight," the Solar diarch promised. "Sergeant."
One of Celestia's guards, a group of identical alabaster pegasi stallions, stood to attention. "Ma'am!"
"Secure the town."
"Ma'am!"
As the pegasi guards scattered, Princess Celestia Turned back to Twilight and her friends. "When we get inside," she said to Twilight. "Tell me everything."
"And that's everything that happened, Princess." Finishing her story, Twilight took a deep breath. "What's this all about?"
With a grim set to her jaw, Celestia stood up and slowly trotted to look out the window of Golden Oaks Library, Twilight's home. "This creature that you encountered fighting Discord. It was the Hellcat."
Twilight gasped. "The Hellcat?"
"Okay!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed in annoyance. "For those of us who have better things to do than read, what's a Hellcat!?"
"The Hellcat is a demon of immeasurable power," Celestia stated gravely.
"Now I remember," Twilight exclaimed. "From Lost Legends of Equestria." She turned to her friends to give them a bit of context. "It's the reason the Applachian Plains are not the Applachian Mountains."
"Dang!"
"Good heavens!"
"Wowie!"
"Lord a' mercy!"
"Oh my."
"Indeed," agreed Celestia grimly. "For those who know where to look, the history books will tell you that Hellcat was a creature of horrendous power, destroying all in its wake. But what those stories do not tell you, is that the Hellcat did not attack out of malice or greed, but out of madness."
The six friends shared a look before turning back to the somber alicorn. "Madness, Princess?" Twilight asked.
"Madness," Celestia agreed. "When my sister and I confronted the beast, it was clear that something had driven it completely and utterly insane, to the point it lashed out at everything around it in a mindless rage. It could not be reasoned with, and so we were forced to fight it."
"I bet you kicked its flank, right Princess?" Dash exclaimed boisterously.
"We did not," Celestia simply replied. At the six mares' exclamations of shock and denial, Celestia turned from the window to face them. "Luna and I held back, as much as we could without endangering our subjects--it was fortunate that the Applachian Mountains were largely uninhabited."
"Forgive me for asking, Princess," interrupted Rarity. "But why on Equestria did you hold back?"
"Understand," explained Celestia. "That this was just after Discord's first reign of madness. We did not know if this was one of Discord's creations, or a victim forced to fight against his will."
"The poor thing," whispered Fluttershy.
Celestia continued on. "We were unable to free it from its madness, and so were forced to use the Elements of Harmony upon the creature, sealing it away in stone. That it broke free at the same time as Discord, is disturbing."
"Huh," Pinkie pondered. "It didn't seem very mad, but it was very angry at Discord. Ooh, maybe that's why Hellcat's a psychotic type!"
At that moment, before Celestia or anyone else could respond to that apparent non sequitur, one of the pegasi guards burst through the door. "Princess! A castle rises from the forest!"
Stiffening, Celestia pushed out the door past the guard and stared. Sure enough, tall, twisting towers were rising above the Everfree Forest treeline off in the distance. That was the direction her old castle once lay. She grit her teeth, before turning to address the six mares that had followed her outside.
"Girls, I have one more task for you this day," Celestia stated solemnly. "I must ask of you to investigate that castle. But be careful," she cautioned. "If what I fear is true, then that is where the Hellcat has made its lair. Do not draw its ire. If it is still caught in the throes of madness, then I must ask you to trap it in stone once more."
"We won't let you down, Princess," Twilight pledged. "Come on girls!"
As she watched the six mares gallop down the street, Celestia let out a deep sigh. "Be safe, my little ponies."
Let's see where this goes. ^^
So cool
You sir/ma'am, are a bloody genius...
Have a fave and a track on me!
I once toyed with the idea of doing a MewTwo Displaced. But, you beat me to it. Well done so far, good sir/ma'am.
What the others said
that like ratio
This is looking really good so far. Nice keep it up!
I tend to lose interest in Displaced stories reasonably quickly. I don't fully understand why, but if it's not because it's a crossover I'm not interested in, I suspect it's mostly to do with the particular writing style, and the story structure: The protagonist is usually way too powerful for the Equestria that they're in (and obviously, is also way to powerful for any Equestrias they crossover into with other Displaced), and the story overall becomes an uninteresting power fantasy.
I don't expect you'll run into that problem. So far, your writing has been rock solid, and you have some genuinely interesting ideas (the genius loci, for example). What I think is most critical, however, is that you won't have the issue of power scaling. Celestia and Luna both were able to hold their own against Mewtwo, and they were deliberately holding back. We don't even get a good sense of how powerful Discord is compared to Mewtwo, because he mainly wins the fight through strategy rather than brute force, which is mainly what Mewtwo has to work with. There is a lot of potential there for growth, as well as character growth as they find their place in the world.
I think that glossing over very quickly how everything got started was also a good move, as was not using the Merchant: The latter is overused and not normally executed well, and the former is not really relevant to the overall story.
Besides, by not using the Merchant, it leaves us to wonder exactly what entity or force started this adventure, and for what reason.
This is excellent. Easily one of the best Displaced stories I've encountered. Your non-standard approach makes it... fresh. Have a like, fav, track, the works.
Yah! A good Pokémon-related fanfic! I've clicked on a fair few of those, but the vast majority were...underwhelming. Not at all interesting.
This? PURE GOLD, unless Sparky were to stop updating (like so many other authors...) or somehow ruin it down the line. Happily, I don't see either of those possibilities happening.
And heck, I don't even know what a Displaced story is.
wait a second, a non-mature displaced story that made the featured list while the mature filter is off so there's clop in its way?
I have high hopes for this story.
...I'm... blown away.. A displaced story gets front page, there's no haters, no flamers, no trolls no huge thumb down bar.
massive congrats to you~
Good chapter.
Looking forward to the next update.
Nice! I'll definitely track this one. I'm really interested to see where you go and like 8017540 said, what kind of character development you can create out of this.
8017774
8017755
Agreed. I think a veteran Displaced author like myself could learn a few tricks from this one.
UPDATE. NOW!
I really like this.
My friend, you have impressed me...
You made a solid story,left out any cliches, had absolutely NO haters at ALL, a fairly small dislike bar, AND you made these THREE chapters in ONE DAY?!
...
*clap... clap... clap... clap*
You have done well... in fact... your story making is impressive... hmmm...
Moar! :3
I am impressed. Please do continue.
This is actually really good story nice plot and everything I may be good at coming up with ideas for stories but I'm not good at writing them you actually can come up with good stories and are good at writing them so I applaud you
Goodness. could you imagine what kind of hilarity that must ensue when our human finds out that he was dubbed: "Hellcat"?
'Don't draw his ire' Hoh, more like his embarrassment.
You don't see too many "Human turns into a Pokemon in the MLP world" stories. This is a great one and I'm looking forward to reading more when the next chapter is out. :D
You have my attention, so please update soon!
You should add this to Pokemon groups.
Another day, another shitty Displaced fic in the featured box
8018471 He already knows he was dubbed "Hellcat"
What is "Displaced"? It looks like "Human In Equestria, Except You Turn Into Some Other Character When You Arrive".
another day, another troll in the comments
8018825A verry acurate discription actuly.
8018825
A special genre of Self-Insert that usually revolves around the author cosplaying some fictional character at a convention and buying some item relevant to their costume from a Mysterious Shady Merchant.
Like if they're dressed as Link from Legend of Zelda, they might find a replica Master Sword at the Merchant's stall.
The item soon proves to be magic and whisks the character away to Equestria while at the same time giving them the body and powers of whoever they were dressed as.
From there, shenanigans, shallow wish-fulfillment, and terrible plot cliches ensue.
Seems rather neat, and I hope you will continue this!
A wild story has gained my interest.
Track Y/N
Y
Save Y/N
Y
This Story has been saved. Likes and or faves will be determined by the next few chapters.
8017774
The butthurt users simply hadn't gotten to it yet. In my experience, Displaced stories never have negative ratios, no matter how bad they are.
So first of all, I didn't read this. I posted it into my local Discord chat and everyone freaked out over it. Then one of the moderators of the chat read it in the general voice channel for everyone to listen. It was both hilarious and cringe inducing for a variety of reasons.
Aside from the usual Displaced tropes such as poor writing, hilariously overpowered self insert, little explanation, forced references, turning canon on it's head for little reason...
Well, this had other issues. Such as linking music at the start of a chapter. Literally the first thing I saw in chapter 1 was a link to Pokemon music. I had to close the tab to stop laughing. How about explaining who the fuck the Mane 6 were on a site about My Little Pony fanfiction? You could have used that space to explain how you were able to hone psychic powers while being stoned.
Seriously, can I rail on the Mane 6 explanations? Because not only were they copy-pasted, redundant and useless, but completely unnecessary! Why! Why does this exist! Instead of actual explanations of stuff that matters, we get filler!
And that's not getting into how blatently overpowered Mewtwo is. Unexplained abilites out the wazoo, while the only reason why he lost to Discord was because "Oh yeah, I had no clue what I was doing." and not because he tried fighting a fucking Chaos God?
I know I'm bashing this a lot, but as of writing, this is the top fic on Fimfiction's Featured Box. Can I just reiterate that. When you enter this site, this is what you see. This is the forefront of Fimfiction's writing. A unoriginal, hackneyed, typical Displaced fic.
I don't regret listening to this being read and torn apart. It was a great laugh. Perhaps add a Comedy tag if you're going to make a parody? You can easily write this off as a parody with how perfectly you hit those cliches. It's a good read if you don't care about anything that makes a good story, like structure, writing, dialogue, all that shit. Seriously, half the third chapter is expositioning everything. Including useless Pokemon information dumps that are completely pointless, just like the prior Mane 6 descriptions.
I came into this with literally no expectations. You fucking took that nothing, and somehow it fell below those. Just your typical Displaced fic. Have some cheesy music.
I love how ironic the first chapter's title is.
This story is really bad.
8019719 169 people disagree with you.
8019324 While your accusations aren't unfounded, have you ever heard of bedside manner, or sugarcoating?
Constructive criticism goes a lot farther than straight up criticism
I love the people who are coming into this and flaming it, we are three chapters in people... We have no idea if the story is well and truly going to be good or bad, give this fic a chance to get a couple more chapters in and maybe a few crucial plot points before ya bring the hammer down... jeez.
8019151 You've never read A Boy and His Box have you? It is without question THE worst Displaced story ever. Well when they started, then it got booted so hard Jsyrin would nuke it if he could.
8019324
Does this guy also link music in the chapters? I love it when writers do that.
8019815
169 people are wrong.
A friend of mine uses a quote by Anatole France in situations like this: "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
8020351
Seeing as good or bad is a matter of opinion it can easiest be measured in how many people think either way. And seeing we have a little voting pool just for that it currently seems like your in the wrong. Yes a million people can be wrong, but when the question is if people think it's good or not, then suddenly a million people thinking a thing becomes a very good argument.
8020351 no, the statement that all those people are wrong is the only thing incorrect here, this is a work of fiction meant to entertain, it's results are subjective, while you disagree with them they disagree with you, neither of these sides are wrong, neither of them are right, it's judged mostly on an individual bases, (though often many people will agree or disagree with each other on stuff like this.)
The only one saying something foolish her is you, whit you\'re claim that people are flat out wrong on a subjective matter.
8020406
8020429
lol okay
8020406 oh, seems like I spoke too soon, (see my comment here, 8020429 ) you just said that because a lot of people think something is good, that makes it flat out good, no it's still only, these people think it's good, a sample group of only about 200 people is no ware near the size of witch you'd need to decide that. something else was said that was foolish.
8020436 try the fanfiction.net mlp section, maybe you'll have a better time finding what you want.
8019837 I believe that honesty is the best policy, and while did embellish a few details to provide a more entertaining critique (The whole anecdote about Discord is still true.) a honest critique is a honest critique. I even said in the comment itself that I understand that my critique may be harsh, but this is still the top fic on Fimfiction right now. It has to be judged as such.
I'd argue that getting straight to the point and saying exactly what was wrong is far better than pussyfooting around the issue. I'm not going to go sugarcoat legitimate issues with the writing when this is what people think is the pinnacle of Fimfiction writing, when in terms of actual writing it fails spectacularly.
Either way, people are going to hate me. Might as well be honest and provide a half decent critique while I'm here.
8020441
I never said it means it is flat out good. But the fact that there is people thinking it's good disapproves his argument that it's purely bad. And while it's a small sample size, it's still more people thinking it's good. And if a majority of people think a thing is good it's commonly considered good. Not unquestionably good, but still good. Small groups can still call things good. It doesn't make them good for everyone, but until more people in the group says it not or people outside the group states otherwise we still say it's good. If we needed for everyone to agree a movie to be good for ous to call it good, then no movie could be called "a good movie".
8019895 Conversely, it's been three chapters and I'm not interested in reading more. You've had three chapters to engage the reader and honestly? I'm not hopeful for future chapters, because this is exactly like every other "brilliantly written" Displaced fic out there. What does this provide that other fics don't? Shoehorned references? Exposition up the arse? Inconsistent explanations on everything? I mean, I get those on any other Displaced fic, so why am I even here? Oh right, because the hivemind thought it was good and as such, it is now the hottest fic on Fimfiction despite having major issues. Having glaring issues that causes people to drop out of the story three chapters in is a bad. (Also I'm not telling the author to kill themselves or anything, so shut up with the flaming accusations, please? You're implying that people who don't like the story are directly insulting the author and that's not true.)
8019815 Considering how low Fimfiction's standards are as is, I don't think you can use majority rules as an actual argument. Especially on a hivemind fic like this, where people simply like the story because... Well I wouldn't say their tastes are necessarily bad, but they can certainly do a lot better than this, then scream bloody murder about the few people who have legitimate issues with the fic itself as "haters" even though I want to enjoy this fic but cannot due to several factors. I point out those issues in order to provide critique for the author. People then jump on me, screaming bloody murder simply because I didn't like it and provided critique.
Like what you want, I don't care. But don't jump on me because I read the whole thing and was thinking "The Room."