Chronicles of the Spectrum

by Blue_Thunder

Immovable Object

The group bid their farewells to each other and departed to their various homes. Dash went to hers and dusted off the camera she'd been using. "Alright, you. Time to get to work." She quite literally wiped off the dust it had accumulated in the time she'd set it down, since Shade seemed to record the encounters himself. She made sure to check the comments of the last video that went up. "'Best fake fight I've seen all year.' 'Hey @RainbowDash20, what are your cam's specs? I wanna get into something like this for myself.' Meh, good luck. 'totally fake who this guy think he is?' Heh. You and me both. Let's see... 'Too powerful! Whats his power level at this point?'" Rainbow could barely hold herself back from laughing. "We know what his source is now, it's only a matter of time before we take him down."

She closed her laptop and stretched. "If I want to pull my stunt off, I'm gonna need some peace and quiet..." Rainbow wandered to her balcony and stared out at the dimming sky. "Just a few more hours. Better bundle up..."

~~~~~~~~~

Day 1

The following day, Rainbow abducted Rarity and traveled to Sweet Apple Acres after school. Aj was already doing stretches to warm up. "Hey y'all."

"Heya Aj. Feeling better, eh?"

"You bet Ah am." Aj threw out several punches and kicks. "Feelin' great, now Ah got mah geode back." She patted her chest where she wore her necklace. "What've ya got planned for mah video next week?"

"You're actually going to be taking your video today, then we'll work on your actual video later. For the fake one, Rarity's going to hit you with pieces of wood, and you're going to block."

"I'm what?" Rarity asked. "No no no, I did not sign up for that."

"I picked you because you had the least strength of all of us. Tied with Twilight, but still. At least she can draw a bow. Besides, we'll be using some older wood for this. Aj?"

"Prepped a pile out back like you asked me to during lunch," Aj confirmed.

"Sweet!" Dash said, readying her camera and tripod. "Let's go get set up."

~~~~~~~~~

"Alright, Applejack. I'm here as you requested of me. What is it you wanted?"

Aj motioned to the scraps of wood. "That big pile o' wood there. Ah need ya to hit me with it. One piece at a time."

Rarity glanced down at the pile. "And... What purpose would that serve?"

"Well, Ah can't hit mahself with it, Ah need help. An' Appleboom's too young, an' Big Mac's too busy."

"That wasn't my question, darling."

Applejack waited, taking a slow breath. "Ah lost mah boxin' match. Not because Ah couldn't hit as hard, but because Ah just couldn't take it. This is gonna help to fix that. An' Ah aim ta be the most immovable object this side o' Canterlot."

Dash gave an off-camera thumb's up.

Rarity sighed, reaching down for one of the boards. A lengthy 2 by 4 with a few holes eaten away. "And, you're sure about this?" Aj nodded. "Alright, then." She stepped to Aj's side and held it firmly. Before she swung, Rarity looked at the camera dead on. "Pay attention, this is important." Rarity looked at Aj's belly and swung.

The board broke cleanly over Aj's hardened abs. "Thatta swing, Rarity." Chunks of board flew every which way. Aj wiped off some wood bits from her shirt. "Got any more, or was that all ya had?"

"Oh, darling. I'm just warming up." One by one, and with weakening strength, Rarity bashed the boards into Aj's body, each one just about shattering on impact. "My word, Applejack. Do you need a change of shirt? Because I brought one just in case."

"Nah, Ah'm good. Ah'm at home, remember. Just gotta go get one. Ah'll be back in just a minute to help clean up." Aj walked off camera as Rainbow followed it for a bit before centering it on Rarity.

"That girl's a tough customer, for sure," Rarity admitted, resting her hands on her hips with a smirk.

Dash clicked it off.

~~~~~~~~~

"Excellent work, Applejack. But did any of that really hurt?" Rarity questioned.

"Not one little bit." Aj looked at Rainbow. "So, if that's the fake, then what's the real deal?"

"Well... We know you're strong. Really strong. But I want to find out your limits. Really test what you're capable of. You wanna find out if you're really immovable?

Aj tilted her head. "What'd'ya have in mind?"

Dash pointed to the hill nearby. "I can run that in just a few seconds, putting me at a real fast speed. I want to know if you can stop me if I ran into you."

Applejack nodded. The two practiced their stopping method. After they agreed on a method, Dash ran off for the hills. "You two are crazy, you know that?"

"Yeah, well... We're just crazy then." Aj put her leg back and braced against the ground, putting her hands out solid in front of her. "Any second now..." A faint blur of color appeared on the hillside through the trees. The next moment, Dash slammed against Aj's guard with all the power she could generate. A colorful shockwave erupted from the block as Aj's legs tensed and broke the ground beneath them.

Rarity flew back and rather far away due to the shockwave.

As Rainbow's momentum halted all at once, Aj relaxed, letting Dash return her feet to the ground. "Now that was something else!" Rainbow commended. "I'll come by over the next few weeks and keep up your ability. No slacking off, you hear?"

"Not on your life, RD. You best give your all." Aj walked over and helped Rarity to her feet, making sure she was alright.

Rarity regained her composure and gave Aj a look over. "Your clothes are absolutely torn to shreds! Inside at once!"

Obliging, never really caring for her outward appearance, Aj disregarded how bad her clothes took the full speed tackle from Rainbow.

~~~~~~~~~

Day 5

That tuesday lunch break, Rainbow brought her laptop to school and made sure to upload the video of Rarity breaking boards over Aj's abs.

"I tell ya, she was really swingin', even for her," Aj admitted. "Felt all o' them."

"Oh, don't give me so much credit. Strength is your power, not mine. Speaking of, what will I be doing for my video?" Rarity asked.

Rainbow took a moment to make sure the video was online. "Huh? Oh right. Rarity's next. Hmm... Well, you already made a lot of crystal stuff... And looking back at the comments, it was taken pretty good."

"Received well," Twilight corrected.

"Whatever," Rainbow scoffed. She sipped her drink and added, "If I were to have you do more... I'd ask you to make something... big. Like... Real big... Maybe... Decorate the gym with as much crystal stuff as you can? I knw it's more of the same and all, but I mean... Where do you go from making crystal things?"

"I did say I could make them any color... Hmm..." Rarity thought. "But... What if I could change their hardness? Back at camp, those vines nearly broke through my shield, and it was crystal."

Twilight mentioned, "Yeah, and those were just vines, right? Density should absolutely be your next step. For the real video, though. Definitely do the decorating thing for the fake one."

Rainbow inquired, "Now, since Pinkie's the usual party planner, I'd want her to have a say in what goes where. Pinkie? Can you be in the gym next sunday? She's gonna need this week to train on getting the colors right first try."

"No problem~" Pinkie replied. "Ooh, that means I'm after her, right? Who's gonna be my partner?"

Author's Note:

Aj is all fixed up and ready to take her next beating! Will she still be standing after her rematch?

Also Rainbow gives us a taste of what she's really capable of.

Up next: Rarity! With Pinkie's help!

Comments

[andrizzi]

Hi. I enjoyed reading the fic so far, and there are some ups and downs I'd like to talk about. Let's address this by topic.
First of all, the setting. It's what grabbed my interest in the first place: EQG with superpowers. Despite being a little ridiculous and cliche, it's something that many people (myself included) like. In this story, you simply take the characters and make them show off... which is fun. The first six chapters are just them making "fake" videos of themself showing off, and there's nothing that goes against the already established EQGs (meaning: everything I'd have to say against this story would be applicable to the show as well.).

Until here, if I had to criticize I'd say you should improve your writing style... for narration, this isn't evocative. You're just listing the characters' actions and dialogue as if we were watching TV and the words should turn into an image. While this isn't wrong, you're not limited to that... you have plenty more tools at your disposal to make the narrative more fluent and engaging. Expositions, emotions, focus on little details, callbacks... it's a lot of stuff. Focusing on giving the character a bit more depth and interpretation can help with that.

Let's go on with the latest chapters, Shade and his battles. I know this character has already been criticized, I'm about to add something myself to that pile, but first I want to say that I had fun. It's not difficult to understand that you like shonen and/or battle shows, neither it is that you wanted to give the Main 7 someone to fight for re rule of cool. The boxing match, the super-speed brawl, the race, the anime-battle with the Naruto reference (RD opening the fourth gate was hilarious) it's all fun.

However, there isn't a real context. Reading this feels like you just wanted these battles to happen, to make them coom, and to throw in random stuff... again, that's fun. You even have a character that kinda can make it happen (kinda, I'll get to that later) but everything lacks something important. Motivations.
You, as the writer, are motivated because you think it's cool. Same for us as the readers if we came here for superpower-fanservice... but what about the characters?
Shade could get a pass, since his motives are supposed to be a mystery, but why do all the others agree to go along with the plot? What drives them forward? Why do they assume Shade is an evil guy? Why do they want to fight him? What is at stake? What's the risk?
Again, the only question I'm not asking is "Why is Shading doing all this?" but that's only because I trust you to already know the answer, and I hope it'll be revealed later on.
As for now, none of the characters is allowed some outside thinking. It feels like all their actions have to be within the formula "Evil guy shows up, we have to fight him". And here's the first issue I have... is he even a bad guy? He pops out of nowhere, says "I have magic too" and straight-up challenges them. Even if he wanted to take their geodes, he could have done so and already from the start.

This brings me to the thing I wanted to add... his powers.
Every character is defined by his limits, what he can and can't do. So it's extremely important to know well beforehand the full extent of one ability, especially in a story where characters have super-abilities that defy natural rules. In that regard, Shade is a bad character because his ability is utterly nonsensical. You justified every trick he pulls, every speck of his magic, as an "illusion" but he can do basically whatever he wants... that's not how illusions work.
Searching on the web, the first definition I found for "illusion" was: an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.
Or you can call them "brain fallacy", I like that more. Point is, illusions aren't real.
Illusion: Seeing something that isn't there (or not seeing something you should), hearing a fake sound, taste, pain... from the victim POV, reality itself is at the whims of the illusionist
Non illusion: Actually doing something... no illusion can have a lasting effect on anything... For example, Aj couldn't be actually hurt unless she really got a beating.

Now, there's a catch. Admittedly, Shad could be playing a big "make-believe" scenario on all the characters to convince them he's all-powerful, that he can teleport, have telekinesis, be a full-athlete, summon fantasy weapons... he could even do the thing of making them believe to be masters of a weapon they never used (but that would have some implications). He could, if you as the author say that he is capable of doing so, and it would all stay within the ability "illusion". But... there are two problems.
First... none of that would actually happen. They'd either be sitting on the sofa all the time, trapped in a fictional world, or they'd be going around chasing lots of invisible ghosts.
Second... and this one is the really bad one... Shade already won. If he can do that, that means that he has complete control over their senses. If he can make anyone believe they're having a fight with magical artifacts, then why can't he simply make everyone blind and deaf? That would be way simpler. Or even better, he makes himself impossible to be perceived and steals all their geodes. Done.

And lastly, I don't understand why the girls are still concerned with uploading their videos once this guy arrives. It's like saying: "Hey, we have a thief stalking us." "I know, but we're just about to reach the Arcade and I have my twenty bucks, so let's ignore him as long as he doesn't try to rob us." "He'll probably just beat us and steal your twenty." "Dude... Arcade."
This leads back to the question, is Shade a bad guy or not? At first I just assumed he was an accomplice of Rainbow, someone who had to drive them all to show off with their powers. My guess was: "Maybe Shade is actually Discord from Equestria, and RD asked him to play the part of the bad guy so that hey would have a punching bad to show off."