What the Sun is Cooking

by Anonymous Writer

Chapter 5: You ready to rumble?

To say Celestia was overwhelmed by the many things that greeted her upon entering would be an understatement. Her eyes squinting in a sore reflex at the sudden bright light, ears flattening upon her head in an attempt to shield themselves from the uproarious sounds of music and the rows upon rows of her subjects lining the stadium.

Taking a brief moment to recover, she blinked her eyes in quick succession and let loose a mild cringe from the ringing in her ears. She began to step forwards once again, now focused enough to take in the sight before her. What she found could only be described as stunning, even to someone who has seen as many things as her.

Her eyes now in working order, the first thing Celestia noticed was the size. It would be safe to say where the size of the colosseum she had seen from the outside had went. Before her was what could only be described as absurd in its scope, but nonetheless real; a massive stadium filled with hundreds of thousands of her subjects lined the seats, their figures and the erratic movements of the audience an unintentional synchronization that seemed, from Celestia's high perch in her seat, like ocean waters in a storm.

With some effort, her eyes traveled upwards, away from the makeshift living water and took in the source of the brightness. Above the stadium, at a height Celestia only assumed would require a pegasus team to reach were several hundred lights, each ablaze with a unique color scheme that ranged across the spectrum, each one switching on and off at a unorthodox pace, causing the light of the arena shift from one blend of colour to another. It never faltered from the exciting atmosphere they produced.

Shifting her focus back to the crowd before her, her ears finally caught up with her. The source of her ear’s suffering was quickly identified by Celestia, having heard this sound many times before. A unified howl of tens of thousands of ponies thundered across the arena, seeming like each member of the audience were trying to outscream each other, all melding together into a war-like cry.

Overhead were several speakers, each blasting out a high-pitched beat so strong it occasionally overtook the sound of the crowd and caused Celestia to mildly shake at some of the louder parts.

Steeling herself, and having taken in her surroundings, Celestia once again moved forwards towards the edge of the balcony. Two seats stood before her, each one flanked by two guards. One a pure white marble, the other a calm night oppal. It wasn’t hard to guess which seat she would be sitting in.

A gasp from behind Celestia caught her attention away from the overwhelming sensations before her and back behind her. Luna, who had once again gone quiet while they were approaching their booth, had a look that could only be equated to pure honest unyielding fascination, her eyes and ears traveling wildly at the experience before her, her hands clasped together in front of her in what Celestia assumed was a way she was trying to compose herself. Her eyes shined brightly with the energy of a child.

Like Celestia she to took a moment to take it all in, though Luna was more out of enthrallment rather than curiosity. Before she too found herself and began to make her way towards the black chair, though her walk now seems to carry a sense of a far lighter skip.

After basking in Luna’s cute moment, Celestia followed her sister's example and made her way towards the front. Upon seeing the sheer size of the crowd, Celestia decided to correct her assumption about the size of the crowd.

At first it seemed like tens of thousands of her subjects were attending, when she could only see from the little window behind the chairs. With the ceiling of the room now behind her, her view became unrestricted.

Before her were not tens of thousands of her little ponies, a more correct answer would be, what Celestia could guess, could easily be mistaken for nearly hundreds of thousands. Several rows of seats that celestia had not seen had been lined above her booth, nearly an additional thirty feet containing dozens of rows filled with ponies were above her, seemingly overkill when compared to what Celestia could guess was fifty feet of packed seats beneath her.

A crowd of such a size, while not new to Celestia, took her by surprise at first. She never would have guessed that such a lauge number of ponies would be interested in such an event. Usually a gathering such as this would be for speeches of great importance, usually given by Celestia herself. She could not help but be astonished and impressed that a similar number would attend an event such as this.

It would seem Luna shared her sentiment when another gasp emanated from Luna’s side of the balcony, even less accustomed to such a large scale event prompting such a number of her subjects to attend. Luna was never one to enjoy public speeches, and, as a result, she was far less used to massive crowds, which was in full display to her far more apparent stunned state at the view before her.

Smiling a little at her sister's stupefied face, Celestia turned back to the massive colosseum before her, her eyes scanning over the masses of bodies filling up row after row of the stadium. Now giving it her full attention this time, Celestia's eyes wandered downwards towards the middle point of the arena, quickly recognizing the structure before her from the pamphlet given to her by Busy Body.

It took Celestia a moment to recall the exact name of the structure before her, but her mind quickly disclosed the name to her; it was a ring.

A massive black, box-shaped platform was stationed within the middle of the arena, with several ropes each attaching themselves to poles on all four corners of the ring, with another pole attached slightly behind the first poles, but had no ropes attached to them. They reminded Celestia of flagpoles, in a way.

In the centre of the ring was a bright orange painting of the wrestling’s name, proudly proclaiming itself from the black hue of the ring, almost as if it was demanding your attention at all times.

The ring itself was much larger than Celestia would have guessed. If one was particular enough, they could fit at least 20 or so of the contenders in there with relatively plentiful room to move.

Celestia's eyes trailed a bit, straining a little with the ever-changing lights above her. Squinting as hard as she could, Celestia could swear she could see what seemed to be a glass dome surrounding the empty area that the ring did not cover, it seemed to expand to about three times the size of the ring and lifted to above about four times the height of the poles attached to the ring. Celestia could not figure why such a dome would be needed.

“Are you comfortable princesses?” A voice from behind Celestia called out, her eyes shifting on her head to pinpoint the source over the ever-growing roar of the crowd. A faint clearing of the throat allowed her to pinpoint where it was coming from.

Turning her head to find its source, she was Busy Body was sitting down next to her, opposite of Luna, on what was equatable to a folding chair, probably pulled up at the last second. He was looking at her with somewhat curious eyes. Raising his eyebrows awaiting her response.

Celestia gave a silent nod in return, before turning her head back towards the audience. While not false the nod was a quiet half lie on her part. The chair was indeed quite comfy, though the army of screaming bodies before her made it a little difficult to relax as Busy Body was inquiring to.

His face softening at the nod, Busy Body looked out into the crowd as well. From the corner of her vision Celestia could see faint traces of a smile forming across the stallion's face.

“Good to know, I was worried that this would be a little off putting to most.” Busy spoke up again, sounding a little relieved and a little somber.

Where did that come from?

Before Celestia could inquire about an answer to her thoughts, a loud sigh followed by another voice pierced the crowd, pulling the attention of both Celestia and Busy Body. Princess Luna was staring at them, with unamusement plastered over her face.

“Forgive us for the interruption, but may I ask when this will start?” Luna asked with a slight annoyance. Her once childlike excitement replaced with a equally childlike boredom. Her cheeks comically puffed out slightly. “I would indeed like to be able to hear the spectacle before I go deaf from the enthusiastic crowd.”

Luna never was one to wait for something she was excited about

Busy Body could only offer a smile in return, finding amusement in the Moon princess’s childlike behavior.

“Funny you should ask princess. Do not worry it shall begin shortly, in fact…” Busy Body trailed off, turning his attention towards the ring in the centre of the arena. “It should be starting right about… now!”

As if on cue, just after Busy Body was finished speaking, the lights within the arena all shut off at once, the music shifting from its loud techno-esce noise to a soft but powerful orchestral build up, gradually building up in volume and intensity as each second passed.

Celestia would be lying if she said it was not easier on the ears.

The crowd's frenzy exploded to even higher levels, Celestia figured it was because the audience new what the music meant.

Once the music reached a level of loudness that rivaled the crowd, several searchlights ignited at the edges of the arena. Circling the crowd several times before each pointing towards a section a little ways beyond the ring.

A hiss heralded the arrival of smoke arose from around the lit up area, obscuring the floor from view, before a dull hiss sounded out, and the sound of mechanical humming replaced it. As the smoke cleared, Celestia spotted two mechanical doors slowly opening from within the smoke screen, the orchestral music playing in synch with the speed of the doors.

Slowly the platform started to rise, carrying with it a large table with a shining golden object within the centre, two chairs stood side by side facing the ring behind the table, where two figures were gradually rising with the rest of the platform. The crowd, seeing the pair, went nuts and thousands of screams of adoration echoed throughout the arena. Showing their support and excitement at the appearance of the two figures.

Celestia's ears twitched a little at a new sound, caused by the orchestral music taking on a harsh electronic-like rhythm, its loud beat reverberating around the arena.

The crowd began clapping along to the rhythm, nearly in unison, as if they had performed the act so many times before.

Turning her attention back towards the lifting platform, Celestia spotted some movement from one of the figures sitting at the elevating table. The figure appeared to be reaching towards something close to the center of the table in front of them, before bringing it towards their head.

Suddenly, the speakers above silenced, their beat only a quiet echo throughout the arena. The crowd seemed to follow suit, quieting down to faint murmurs across the seats. All eyes fixated on the one moving figure down below.

“Mares and Gentlecolts! Are you ready for some action?!”

It would seem that the object was a microphone, the many speakers awakening again at a deafening volume at the figure’s question. Female by the sound of it, Celestia noted.

The question seemed to reignite the crowd, the silence being destroyed by the familiar deafening roar of an excited audience.

“YES!” the incomprehensible roar of the crowd was pierced by a unified voice of many of the ponies, each exclaiming their answer to the question as if their life depended on it.

Celestia smiled a little at the excitement the crowd had, it had been awhile since she had seen such excitement within a crowd of this size, let alone at something so simple as a mere question.

They always did get riled up over so little.

The figure that spoke seemed to be satisfied with that answer, taking in the crowd's roars before holding the mic up to her face.

“Now that's what I like to hear! I’m lovin this energy tonight! Without further ado…” the mare paused mid sentence, and there was a faint sound of snapping fingers. And suddenly, almost as quickly as the smoke appeared, a dull magical hum followed by an arcane-like glow overtook the surrounding smoke, and with a mechanical ‘woosh’ the smoke vanished. No longer obscuring the center of the colosseum. “Let's get this show started!”

Soon the mechanical sound that occurred for the platform began to happen once more, though this time it was increased tenfold. The sound echoing across the arena as the mechanics of the stadium flared to life.

The lights hanging overhead began to move, each one heading towards one of the edges of the ceiling, slowly creating a vacant space within their numbers. Slowly, another door opened up in the center of the newly-created space. An object began descending, with various images begin being played on repeat over and over across its frame.

Celestia quickly recognized the new object as a series of screens, four in total, with one facing each side. Each one’s size rivaling some of the biggest billboards she has ever seen.

Soon the light show on the screens was replaced by two faces. Celestia recognized them as the faces on the advertisement in the entrance to the coliseum.

“Wow~~~” Celestia's ears once again traveled to her right. She didn’t need to look to figure out what it was. Luna, who had been quiet up until now, couldn't control her excitement anymore, and a sound that sounded more like a squeak than any word escaped her lips.

Smirking a little, Celestia continued watching the spectacle before her. Finishing its decent, the the images on the screen changed. Replacing the faces was the same question the figure asked.

ARE YOU READY?

“Here we go!” As if on cue, several of the overhead lights that had lain dormant sprung to life, each aiming towards the table beside the ring. Illuminating the dark area for all to see, the two mysterious figures were revealed.

The two mares sat side by side, each one looking out towards the crowd. The one with the microphone clearly the more energetic of the bunch, with a bright orange coat and dark red hair, an ear to ear smile, and waving slightly flirtatiously towards all the nearby fans. The figure beside her was a unique contrast. Unlike the energetic mare beside her, she only gave polite nods towards the audience. Her appearance was simple; a pure grey coat with a blue mane tied neatly into a bun behind her head.

Now that Celestia could see them, she couldn't help but blush slightly. The attire choice of the two mares was... ‘unique’ to say the least. The two were wearing what Celestia could only guess was a competition-like swimsuit she had seen some athletes wear, the key difference being that they had to be at least two sizes too small for them, each suit hugging their respective mares within their black embrace, leaving very little to the imagination.

It wasn't hard to guess why most of the stallions behind the table were the ones cheering when the fiery mare stood up.

“Those are very… interesting costume choices for those two.” Celestia muttered slightly towards Busy Body. He could only offer a sheepish smile with a mild blush covering his face.

“Our boss has unique tastes when it comes to costume designs…” Busy Body was nervously giggling a little at the end of his retort. His hand rubbed the back of his head.

“Good evening mares and gentlecolts! Welcome, to the third annual championship title!” Both her hands raising once she finished, pointing towards the ceiling in an excited manner. “This will be a night to remember!”

The figure beside her reached forward as well, her hand grabbing the second microphone that was placed before her.

“Right you are Flare, and what a turnout this has been. It would seem like all of Equestria has come out to witness this event.” Once again, contrast to her companion beside her, she kept her cool on, her announcement carrying a far calmer and collected tone, before sitting back down in her seat once she finished.

Bouncing a little, the announcer beside her, Flare as she was known, spoke up at her fellow announcer’s ending.

“I'd have to agree with ‘ya on that one Jaycee. In all my time serving as an announcer, this has to be the biggest turnout yet! We’ve had to have broken a record somewhere! Let's have a big hand for our lovely audience tonight!” Clapping her hands Flare gestured towards the crowd to follow suit, the stadium being filled with the sound of hands slamming together filled the place.

Even Busy Body joined in on the applause, seemingly lost in the moment of the scene before him.

“No surprise there my friend. After all, today is quite the occasion. On top of it being a championship bout for the title, we have a special treat for you fans. Attending tonight are two special guests.” Standing up, the one known as Jaycee pointed towards the booth Celestia and Luna were sitting in. Several cameras hidden from view pointed her way, causing the image of the screens above to display the princesses in all their glory.

There it is.

Celestia was wondering when they would be brought up. She quickly readied herself, looking as regal as she could in the two milliseconds before her image showed up. Celestia only offered a small smile and a curt wave towards the audience.

Luna, however, was far less graceful in her quick appearance check; fumbling around for a moment, surprised at being broken out of her stunned amazement, not ready for the sudden attention, before blushing and waving meekly at the audience.

The crowd went absolutely nuts at the revel of their guest, even more so once they saw them displayed on the several screens of the hanging box. It would seem that their presence went unnoticed. Most likely distracted by the energy and light show being offered before them are to blame.

The image of the two princesses remained on the image screen for a while before fading away, returning to the image of the two masked mares.

“Our lovely princesses have blessed us with a surprise visit! If even the princesses came you know what's goin’ down is bound to be great!” Flare exclaimed, fist pumping before sitting back down into her seat.

“I’d have to agree with you on that one Flare. Let's hope this match will not disappoint with such high-status figures attending tonight.” Jaycee responded, nodding in agreement before shifting her attention towards one of, what Celestia figured, was one of the many hidden cameras, her face appearing on the screens. “I think we’ve been waiting long enough, so without further ado…”

Snapping her fingers, similar to how Flare did to activate the screens, a series of fire columns erupted in a line towards the left of Celestia. These columns illuminated a path that Celestia could have sworn was not there before, before the fire contorted into a square, where it lit up a newly formed door.

“Let the match begin!” Jaycee exclaimed, displaying some fervour more expected of Flare at this point. Ending her proclamation by pointing towards the now illuminated door.

Here we go then…

Celestia followed Jaycee’s point towards the door, her eyes rising slightly in curiosity at what may come out first.

“You heard her folks, let's get this party started!” Flare spoke up, clearing her throat. She followed Jaycee’s example and gestured towards the door.

“Introducing the challenger. An old school fan favorite and an old school gal, the mother of all magic and caretaker of pain. Give it up for,” Flare paused, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath, building up the moment and taking in the crowd’s growing frenzy. A few moments later, opening them, “MIDNIGHT ROSE!”

Yelling with all her might, Flare pointed towards the door, several of the spotlights above her following suit. Each one pointed at the platform just before it, causing a purple-like glow.

The fire surrounding the door changed, turning purple as well, before being enveloped with a magical glow and forming a ball of flame in front of the entryway.

The doors behind the fire opened, and slowly the ball of fire grew in size, nearly doubling its presence before making its way down the flaming alleyway.

Once it was about halfway across, several small sparks shot out in several directions from the flame, their purple glow leaving behind a trail of fire behind them, traveling across the arena they created a mock light show that put the one before to shame.

One of the flames came up towards the princesses’ booth, the flame stopping just short of the two princesses.

Celestia eyed it with curiosity, as she had never seen pyrokinesis used in such a way before. She gave the caster some credit for the creativity.

Luna's eyes were fixated on it; she was like a moth staring at a flame, her childlike demeanor increasing tenfold at the sight of the fire before her.

The flame began to move once again, hovering towards Luna, who was too stunned to notice, the fire quickly rushed forwards, and quickly booped Luna on the nose.

A slight squeak escaped Luna as her snout screened up a bit at the warm touch of the fire along with the sudden movement towards her face, her eyes lightly crossing to look at the now close fire. Celestia’s heart almost melted at the cute overload.

The fire then suddenly vanished as quickly as it appeared, rushing towards another part of the arena.

The central flame had made its way towards the barrier around the ring. With a brief flicker the barrier opened up a hole just big enough to allow the flame to proceed comfortably inside.

Making its way towards the edge of the ring, the fire levitated itself up over the side of the ring, passing over the ropes with the grace of a bird.

Upon landing on the ring’s floor, the several flames dancing across the arena all rushed towards it, passing through the barrier with ease as if it wasn't there. As if it was unnoticeable to the magic creating it.

Each flame stopped just before rejoining the final flame, orbiting around it like planets would a star, before all rushing into it at once, creating a bright lavender-like glow.

Several acaric-like hums sounded out from the fire, magic making the sound loud enough for all to hear. The fire then suddenly began flickering. A few moments later the fire exploded in a way similar to a firework. A loud bang following the sudden burst of magical inferno spread through the arena.

Standing where the fire once hovered, was a mare.

The dull purple aura her horn produced confirmed it was a unicorn. Her coat a smooth silver-like grey that shone brightly as if washed by dozens of different shampoos. Her mane draped over her back in a single long purple and white ponytail.

Zooming into her face, a camera displayed the mare's face on the screens above her. Her face was obscured by the purple mask adorning her head, the silver flames and stars making it seem almost ethereal.

Slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes gracefully opening and staring into the camera. Her light blue eyes shone powerfully with age and magic.

Zooming outwards the image of the mare's face increased to her figure. Celestia noticed that It would seem that the outfit for this mare was far more tame than the two announcers.

Like her mask her uniform took on a similar color scheme; a purple top that ended just before her shoulders and descended low enough to cover most of her midriff, followed by skin tight pants that hugged her lower body. Purple dominated most of the colour on it, but, matching her mask were various silver flames adorning the ends of the limbs of the costume, with a silver star adorning the center of her chest.

To say the crowd was excited would be an understatement. Already riled up from the flame show, the crowd exploded into a mass of excited cheering, each pony showing their adoration of the newly-appeared pony before them.

Making her way across the ring, Midnight Rose made her way towards one of the nearby corners, seemingly blocking out the chaos of the crowd around her, as if she couldn’t hear it. Upon reaching it, she silently turned around and leaned against it, her eyes closing once more as if in deep contemplation.

She reminds me of someone…

“Damn, what a show! Guess amazing magic comes with the territory of this magical mare!” Flare spoke up, her voice resonating across the crowd, her eyes filled with excitement as well, as clearly she enjoyed the performances as much as the audience.

“I’ll say, clearly Midnight is in it to win it today.” Jaycee nodded in agreement, her excitement limited to a small smile upon her face as she eyed her partner’s giddy bouncing before starting out and facing the door once again. “Hope you enjoyed that folks, cause the best has yet to come”

Her eyes taking on a silent glow, becoming more lively than they had to this point. Jaycee stood up and exclaimed with a authorite tone.

“For our next competitor. The Champion title holder, the kicker of flanks, the baker of all, give it up for... The Terminator!”

On those words the fire around the door regained the orange, fiery look, before springing to life and increasing in ferocity tenfold. The doors opened once again, although this time only a single figure walked out. Another mare walked out of the doors, showing herself from the get go unlike her opponent did before her. Displaying herself for all to see.

Wings flared, the pegasus began to walk down to the ring, waving to and fro as she did so. Her blonde mane swung freely behind her head, flowing almost majestically in tune with her strides. Wasting no time, the cameras did not wait for her to enter the ring to begin filming her, her form quickly being displayed on the overhead screens for all to see.

Celestia once again felt her face flushing a little, this uniform putting even the announcers to shame. The mare’s uniform was a simple black colored two piece uniform with golden lines in various places, adding some sense of royalty to her. The top part doing little in terms of covering her assets up front.

Though what stole the show, and the source of Celestia's blush was what the mare was wearing as bottoms, or rather, lack of what she was wearing as bottoms.

To say the mare was bottom-heavy was an understatement, her body shaped in a textbook hourglass-like form. It was a miracle that such a well endowed behind was able to exist in the first place. Its size only emphasized by the lower part of her uniform.

It would appear at first glance that the bottoms were just normal sport shorts, but due to the mares well endowed nature, it would be more appropriate to call them underwear at this point. The clothing stretched to its limits to fit around the mare.

It made sense as to why the cheers for the champion got louder after she passed them.

Her cheerful bounce was not helping to defuse it either.

Celestia could feel the awkwardness emanating from Busy Body, almost as if he could sense the princess’s question. All he could do was offer another sheepish grin.

“And here she is, the champion in all her glory, making her way down without a care in the world!” Flare announced, somehow even more invigorated than the last time, her face painted with a bigger smirk with a mild blush on her cheeks.

Making her way towards the side of the ring, passing through the barrier with a nonchalant strut, and folding her wings against her back, the Terminator decides to enter the ring to old fashion way; hopping up onto the side of the ring, she proceeded to bend over, going underneath the rope in order to enter. Taking a bit longer then most would to fit her behind through easily. Much to the enjoyment of many of the hot blooded stallions able to see the view.

Once inside the Terminator made her way towards the corner opposite of the one Midnight was leaning on, and the Terminator gave what seemed to be an attempt at an intimidating glare at her opponent, but Midnight was still too deep in her own world to notice.

“Now that everything's in order, time to get to the fun!” Flare spoke up, before proceeding to face the audience to address them. Standing up, Flare reached over the table, gesturing towards an area beyond the ring, before retracting her arm, and pointing it to the sky.

“Without further ado, LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!”

Author's Note:

holy crap this took forever to write.
my sincerest apologies to anyone who was waiting for this, i hope this makes up for it.

hope you enjoy hopefully i can get these done faster

and a big thank you to my editor for editing this, this chapter would have been a mess without him. thanks buddy

the real fun will start next chapter

Comments

[VultureYugiohFan33]

Greetings, I am VultureYugiohFan33.

Might I say that this is quite an interesting chapter indeed. I know that there has been some delays, which saddened me since I've been constantly checking in on this site to see if the newest chapter has come out. To see that it has finally been uploaded is very cathartic to say the least.

Like your other chapters thus far, your particular form of articulation is very impressive. I bet this is usually what takes most of the time when writing these chapters? If so, I understand. Your editor did a really good job as well. Didn't find nearly as many grammatical errors as last time. I really wish I could write like this because even though people have loved my stories, the way I write them makes them feel a bit static compared to something like this. It really puts the setting in perspective, even if it feels a little over-exaggerated at times.

I like Luna's childish delight. It's very cute to read, which is hard thing for me to feel sometimes when I read other stories. Seriously, it's adorable.

I do question why you dedicated the entire chapter to just the opening show up till before the match started. But I enjoyed it so much I also find it excusable. Maybe it's just me, but I guess I was expecting the match right away or at least a longer chapter to encompass both things. Though thinking on it, I guess it would be a jarring change of pace from your other chapters, and it is important to establish the scope of the setting as to expose Celestia to the environment that your story will be focusing on. Can't fault you for that, I guess.

I'm not sure if this comment helped at all, but I really am interested in where this is going so far, and am looking forward to how the match will play out.

[Anonymous Writer]

8517361
Oh don't worry, any comment helps a lot my friend. I'm just glad too know someone likes my stuff

You're half right on what takes these chapters so long for me, the descriptions are fine, it's just making up my mind on to put what where

The next chapter shouldn't take too long, and that's where the real fun will start

[VultureYugiohFan33]

(I'm not sure how to respond to your response, so I'll have to just put another comment in and hope you get the idea)

Well I certainly hope it doesn't take too long. Hopefully when it does come out the payoff for your builduo will be worth it.

But, you know, tale your time. Don't want to male your content poorer by rushing you.

[Anonymous Writer]

8522563
No worries, it definitely won't take anywhere near as long as this one so you shouldn't be waiting long.

It's fine, it takes a lot for something to rush me, so don't be worried about it, in fact I enjoy people commenting on these. Feed back is always helpful

[Skywriter]

As usual, your strength is in staging and glamor. You clearly have a strong vision in your mind, and for the most part, I find you do a pretty good job conveying the visuals to your audience.

Unfortunately, continuing style, grammar and word-choice issues continue to pull me out of the narrative and prevent the immersion that you'd otherwise be achieving. There are outright spelling errors ("acaric"?), at least one instance of useless Interjection (a distracting "it seemed" when you went right away to unambiguously describe the object) and still plenty of moments when you swap back and forth between the present and past tenses.

The very biggest narrative flow difficulty is the constant use of sentence fragments, and this yanks me out of immersion more than anything. Let me illustrate with a quote:

Slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes gracefully opening and staring into the camera. Her light blue eyes shining powerfully with age and magic.

See that full stop after "camera"? This happens over and over again. "Her light blue eyes shining powerfully with age and magic" is not a complete sentence, and cannot correctly stand alone. This needs to be substituted with one of the two following constructions:

Slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes gracefully opening and staring into the camera, her light blue eyes shining powerfully with age and magic.

-or-

Slowly, she lifted her head, her eyes gracefully opening and staring into the camera. Her light blue eyes shone powerfully with age and magic.

Personally, I prefer the second, because it breaks up what would otherwise be a very long sentence, but either one is correct. What you have in the original version, and what shows up throughout the piece, is an instance where you've split off a secondary dependent clause into its own sentence. It's really super distracting.

You've got a great grasp of setting a scene. I niggle a bit on the size of the crowd ("Hundreds of thousands"? Really? I realize this is fantasy, but what sporting venue in existence has that kind of capacity?) but you do know how to set a scene. It's a shame I can't lose myself in it.