Intermission ~ A Requiem
The night stumbles along slowly, like a machine’s inner workings struggling to operate. Twilight can feel the horrible emptiness of this night all around her. Swallowing her. She is its meal for the night. Its appetizer. She looks out her window to the moon above, the same ugly and hideous and twisted moon that is no longer Luna’s, lording over the night below—the night that is no longer Luna’s.
The more she thinks about it, the more revolting it feels. Their goddesses are not here, yet the sun and moon rise and sink in the sky without their mothers. How could this be? Twilight theorizes that the Princesses’ abilities were estimated incorrectly. Perhaps they didn’t raise those heavenly bodies from their rest each morn and dusk—perhaps all they did was bless the day and night. Without their blessings, each day feels more uneasy and every night becomes something to fear.
Twilight rests her head on her desk, craving sleep. Groping for it the same way a pony in a desert gropes for water: she thirsts for slumber. Longs for it. But like all the starving and damned, what they want is something they’ll never receive.
Slowly, she sits back up. Looks aside. The eerie moon above casts its evil eye upon Spike, now asleep in a basket the nurses dropped by. Her eyes flick to the moon. She mouths a curse at it. With a thought, Twilight pulls the curtain shut, blocking the moon’s invasive view of the room.
Twilight Sparkle looks down at her assistant as he sleeps. He turns after a few seconds. Smacks his lips. Mumbles something. It isn’t long until he begins to snore softly. For the first time tonight, Twilight finds it within herself to smile again. She draws her face close to Spike’s and plants a goodnight kiss on his forehead—one he would have been embarrassed by had he been awake.
She looks to her desk again. On it are a lit lantern, the remains of the Arcanum Aura Analyzer, its needles and knobs displaying a flat zero. Next to them are her research notes. Atop those sits a checklist.
A heavy sigh escapes Twilight as she returns to her desk. What worries her, besides the obvious? Uncertainty. That must be it. She's become uncertain of a lot of things.
Uncertain of her brother. His safety. And what of his wife? What would Cadence think when she sees what's become of her husband? And what of Roaring Yawn? It's been nearly two days since she last wrote him, and still no reply. The silent mystery of their fate weighs heavily in Twilight's mind.
Trying to distract herself, Twilight looks over her checklist one more time. The checklist itself has unmarked boxes next to various ingredients for the devices she plans to make sometime tomorrow—three compasses, a jar of Darkness-aligned magical ink, Ignis dust, and three Pan’s Needles.
Trackers for the pieces of Dracula. Three trackers for three members of their group. No more, no fewer. While they run the risk of losing their way should one break, it’s better than accidentally allowing one into the claws of whatever monstrous servant of Dracula should come across it.
From the three trackers should be formed three groups. Twilight is still half-asleep when it comes to deciding who goes where in this case—and with the added aid of Shatterstorm and Aeon, it’d at least help the group with numbers. Big Macintosh might be able to help, too, but it’d be rather unsafe to take all the most eligible Ponyvillians and leave the town unguarded in case anything happened…
But that’s getting too far ahead of herself. This is all something that needs to wait until tomorrow. Right now, she needs her sleep—a sleep that she cannot reach. She climbs into bed anyway, nestles herself beneath her covers and closes her eyes.
The moment they are closed, the dead foals scream silently as their blank eyes see nightmares only they can see. Twilight opens her eyes again and is greeted by the ceiling above. After a few seconds, she closes them again.
Ponyville is on fire. She can smell the smoke. She can taste the ashes. She can hear the cackle of a mad grave digger as he burns and burns and burns. Again her eyes snap open, this time accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. She presses a hoof against her lips and gulps, trying to bring herself back together. Once more, she closes her eyes.
Bloody tears. Bloody tears on a mouthless face of white.
When she opens her eyes this time, she opens them with a shriek.
Shatterstorm wants one thing tonight. To be clean. To be cleansed.
Underneath the warm torrent of the shower, an adult Shatterstorm brushes at himself furiously. Soap attacks every trace of Actrise’s touch. He breathes deep before lifting his face to the shower water, splashing his entire head, his mop of ocean-green mane becoming damp and heavy.
Not clean enough.
Underneath the warm torrent of the shower, a fourteen-year-old Shatterstorm brushes at himself furiously. Soap attacks every trace of Minty Fresh’s touch. He breathes deep before lifting his face to the shower water, splashing his entire head, his long ocean-green mane becoming damp and heavy.
Unclean.
Underneath the warm torrent of the shower, a twelve-year-old Shatterstorm brushes at himself furiously. Soap attacks every trace of Olive Branch’s touch. He breathes deep before lifting his face to the shower water, splashing his entire head, his shaggy ocean-green mane becoming damp and heavy.
Still unclean.
Underneath the warm torrent of the shower, a ten-year-old Shatterstorm brushes at himself furiously. Soap attacks every trace of his mother’s touch. He breathes deep before lifting his face to the shower water, splashing his entire head, his shaggy ocean-green mane becoming damp and heavy.
Never clean.
Underneath the warm torrent of the shower, an eight-year-old Shatterstorm brushes at himself furiously. His mother’s touch is all over him, crawling all over him like hideous spiders or fleas, digging their ugly heads into his skin and drawing out his blood. The skittering, feeding, crawling itch of it all makes him feel invaded. Filthy. Ugly.
An eight-year-old Shatterstorm loves his mother.
An eight-year-old Shatterstorm hates his mother.
An eight-year-old Shatterstorm is unclean.
An adult Shatterstorm will never be clean.
Shatterstorm has always preferred showers to baths, ever since he was a little colt. He even loves the rain. As he rinses off the soap from before and begins the sixth soap-down that night, Shatterstorm remembers why he likes showers. Why he likes rain. Why he likes it when water descends upon him from above.
At least when the water is already coming down, Shatterstorm can’t tell the difference between the raindrops and his own tears.
Marble paces the length of her cell. Her steps are slow. Sorrowful. She turns around upon reaching the wall, and paces to the other side. Walking again past the cold toilet. Walking again past the stiff cot. Walking again by the iron bars and the barred window. Outside the cold, dry cell, Marble hears a door open and somepony descends the short, three-step staircase.
She puts her front hooves on the bars as the jailer comes in. He’s a burly pony, though not quite as large as Big Macintosh. An icy, unfriendly color scheme emphasizes his role of a resolute sentinel. His unicorn horn glows with an equally-cold color, levitating in front of him a plate of steamed vegetables. He stops in front of her cell.
One sniff of the vegetables leaves Marble’s stomach growling. For a few seconds, the jailer just stands there in front of her cell, unmoving, like a statue. The plate of vegetables hovers just out of Marble’s reach. If she could, she’d levitate the food into her cell herself—but the clamp around her horn stunts her magic, preventing her from utilizing any telekinesis.
She takes another whiff of the delicious food. Carrots. Potatoes. Peas. While the vegetables were likely low-quality, right now they were a breakfast fit for a god. Marble licks her lips and looks hesitantly up to meet the jailer’s steely gaze.
His lantern-square jaw twitches. “I heard what you did to those kids,” he says quietly, his voice almost like a pair of large rocks sliding against one another.
He is met with silence—the same silence Marble has so far greeted everypony with since the ocean-colored pegasus guardspony brought her in.
Slowly, the jailer takes Marble’s prison food over to the far side of the jailhouse’s block, out of her sight. Her stomach growls as she hears his hoofsteps fade away gradually, then suddenly stop. She hears a lid open up. Then a muted sound of something falling into a bag. The jailer comes back, the breakfast plate empty. Marble eyes the empty plate helplessly.
The jailer sneers. “I hope you get what you deserve,” he growls as he walks back up the stairs.
The heavy hoofsteps travel, fading away again, until Marble hears the door open. “Prisoner was pretty hungry this morning,” he calls to who must be the cook. “Cleaned the whole plate!” Just as the door shuts behind him, she hears the cook say something—sounds like, “I hope she choked.”
Marble holds herself against the bars of her cell, leaning her wary face against them. She sniffles as she slides down, settling onto the cold, stony floor. She sobs.
“Psst!”
Marble looks up. She hears the small sound again, this time accompanied by her assumed name. She gets up on her cot, then up on her hind legs as she looks out the barred window. Looking through the bars, she finds Pokey Pierce, still sporting the black eye he’d received earlier. He's down on his stomach, on the grass as he looks through the bars and meets Marble's gaze with his own.
When he sees he has her attention, he smiles. Marble has always found his smile pretty, but at the same time dumb—like a little child who’s too innocent to understand how cruel the world can be. He has no idea.
With him is a small box and a bottle of milk. “Brought’cha something,” he says quietly. He levitates it through the bars, his warm blue aura leaving it on her side of the barred window. Before the aura dissipates, it strokes her face tenderly, earning a gasp of surprise from Marble. She blushes. Pokey Pierce smiles, his tail wagging like a dog’s.
Again with that pretty, dumb smile of his. Marble returns it with one of her own. She looks to the box. It’s a local brand of cereal, with marshmallows in the shape of pirate-themed objects. Like something a kid might beg his mother to buy for breakfast. Her smile becomes a friendly smirk. She looks to Pokey again—his humor present in his good eye. She hears him chuckle, as if his choice in her meal was meant as a joke.
Which it likely was. Either way, it got a smile out of her—and a smile is all Pokey Pierce wants. (For now.)
Marble takes the food and sits on her cot. She opens the box, digging into the contents eagerly. Bland vanilla and crunchy sugar never tasted this good before—she chews the cereal quickly, taking a deep drink of the milk periodically. Much to her surprise she finishes everything in under a few minutes. She looks into the box in surprise. Then back to Pokey Pierce, who had watched her wolf it all down with a look of amusement.
“What?” Marble whispers jokingly. “N-No puh-prize in the b-box?”
Pokey Pierce chortles and turns away sheepishly. The baby blue glow surrounds the empty objects and takes them away. “I’ll take care of that so you don’t get caught,” he says.
Silence.
“Y-You didn’t… have to duh-do that f-f-fuh-for me,” Marble stutters as she stands back up on her cot.
Pokey Pierce rubs his black eye. “Aw, that’s OK,” he says nonchalantly. “I know you’re innocent. I don’t believe a word of what they said.”
“N-No, I meant… your eye.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be able to see out of this eye again by tomorrow.” Pokey laughs quietly at his own stupid joke.
“That g-guh-gr-gur… R-Royal Guard threatened to arrest you,” she says. “He was within his rights to, b-but he d-d-didn’t.”
“Yeah, instead he settled for knocking me out,” Pokey says bitterly. “I’ll be complaining to his superiors. Totally not a cool way for a Royal Guard to act.”
Marble rests her face on a hoof. “You thuh-threated to knock his b-buh-bl-b-bl… clean his clock if he took another s-st-stuh-st—if he got too close to me. Whuh-what were you expecting him to d-do?”
Pokey seems to think this over a moment. She's close enough to his face to watch his head's inner clockwork grind and rattle. “You know, I’m… not really… sure,” he says, finally. “I guess I didn’t really think that through.”
Silence. Marble sighs and closes her eyes shut. “P-Pokey.”
“Yes?”
“You’re v-very sw-sw-swuh-s-s… kind… b-but…” She opens her eyes again, looking directly into Pokey’s. “But you need to f-fer-forget ab-about me.”
Pokey wears a frown—the same kind one finds on the face of a foal when they’re told “no.” He shakes his head. “No can do,” he says. “Marble, I—”
“White D-Dwarf.”
“…What?”
“White Dwarf,” she says more clearly. “That’s my real n-name. F-Fuh-Fren-Friends call me D-Dee f-for short.”
Pokey Pierce looks at her, confused. Dee tries her hardest not to look into his eyes—or at that puppylike face of his. What comes next is going to hurt him, but she concludes that she needs to do it. This has to happen.
“I lied to you, P-Pokey. Ab-About everything.”
Don’t look at him, she reminds herself. She can hear him breathe a little more heavily, as if he cannot process that a mare as beautiful as her could lie.
“I lied to B-Big Macintosh, too. I’m not an artist—I c-can’t even dr-draw st-st-stick figures. And I’m n-not f-fer-from F-Fillyd-delph-f-fuh-f-phia.”
A long and uncomfortable pause. Against her better judgment, Dee looks down and is greeted by the look she was afraid she’d see. She remembers, as a foal, a time in which she witnessed the shy kid in her class get beat up by other kids who acted like they were his friends. Pokey has exactly the same hurt expression that kid did.
“…Why?” he asks, his voice choking. “Why’d you lie, Dee?”
Good grief, that’s the kind of tone one could hear coming from a child who’s watching his pet being put to sleep! Dee takes a deep breath and turns away from the window. “I c-can’t tell you. You wouldn’t und-understand.”
“Tell me," Pokey says sternly. "You can tell me, Dee. You can trust me.”
“No, I c-can’t. I can’t tell you.”
“But I want to understand you, Dee.”
“No, you n-need to go away. You need to suh-st-stay away from me. Please d-don’t make this hard for b-both of us.”
Pokey leans forward as he folds his forelegs defiantly. “Dee, I won’t do that,” he says. “I dunno what bad decisions you’ve made in your life that led you to this. But I won’t abandon you.”
Dee's lips stretch into a frown as she closes her eyes and shakes her head. Pokey can hear the cracks in her regal, queenly voice. “N-No,” she chokes, “No, Pokey, you’re very sweet and I like you. I like you a lot. That’s why, f-f-for your own s-suh-say-safe-f-f—protection, you need to s-s-stay away from me.”
Pokey places a hoof on the bars. His tone and body language change entirely, no longer a little colt but a fierce warrior. “Never. I’ll never abandon you.” Silence. “I know I’m dumb. I’ve never been accused of being all that bright. I’m not exactly rocket scientist material. But I like to think what I lack in brains I more than make up for in heart.”
His hoof still on the bars, he bows his head low—like a knight swearing an oath to a princess locked away in a tower, promising he’ll rescue her and bring her home. “And my heart… belongs to you.”
Dee facehoofs. “You d-don’t und-understand,” she says lividly.
“Then make me understand. I want to understand.”
Dee looks out the window again. The sun is slowly beginning to rise, bathing the world around them in a dull orange. The light bathes Pokey Pierce in gold, making him seem radiant.
Beautiful.
He’s beautiful in his own dumb way. Perhaps it’s not his ignorance of the dangers of the world, but the way he seems to take those dangers head on, damning the consequences. He had no idea if he’d win a fight against a trained guardspony like Shatterstorm, but he did so anyway. He probably understands the gravity of assisting a criminal, but he did so anyway.
Pokey Pierce has proven he's more than willing to do terrible things and break any law for her. That a stallion would go out of his way for her like this is…
…is ludicrous. He’s going to get hurt. In some sick way, it feels as if he wants to be hurt.
Dee falls onto her cot, and sobs. She hears Pokey call her name a few times before he stops. She curls up again, and cries herself to sleep as whatever nutrients she gained from the cereal are devoured by the red seed nestled inside her.
“Well,” Rarity says as she claps shut the book she was reading. “You certainly took your sweet time in coming home.” She gets out of her chair and, somewhat haughtily, walks forward.
“I’ll have you know that while you were away, your youngest daughter was terrorized and brutalized with you nowhere to comfort her. Your youngest daughter nearly died yesterday.” She pauses. Hesitates. When no argument is made, Rarity continues her rant.
“You weren’t there for her. Don’t even argue. You weren’t there—you’re never there. You spoil her the same way you spoiled me: by giving us things we might want, but never giving us what we need. She needed you here. I needed you here.” Irritated, Rarity waves a hoof to articulate her next point. “I know you love us, I never doubted that, but you’re just…”
Say it. Just say it and be done with it, Rarity.
She stomps the ground. “You’re so irresponsible! Sweetie Belle might never be whole again, you know! Not after everything she’s been put through! Being attacked by monsters! Getting poisoned! Seeing terrifying images! She might recover from those wounds, but she’ll never be the same again! And it all happened because you weren’t here to help! You weren’t here to protect her!”
Silence descends like a curtain. Rarity takes a deep breath as she looks more closely at her reflection in the window. She frowns. “Like parents, like daughter, I suppose,” she says coldly, her rehearsal now complete. She sighs. “What could you have done if you were here? I’m the one who’d fed her the poison in the first place.”
Rarity sits down, still looking at her reflection. “What am I going to do?” she asks herself quietly.
“Miss Rarity? Your sister is awake now,” says a nurse from behind, drawing Rarity out of her thoughts. The nurse leads her into Sweetie Belle’s room.
Sweetie Belle lies in her bed, looking to the ceiling above her in complete disinterest. She turns her head to look at Rarity—and although Rarity greets her with a warm smile, it soon fades when she finds it unreturned. Sweetie Belle merely observes Rarity the same way a bored child might observe a fish tank, a broken husk of who she once was. Her solemn eyes beckon Rarity to come closer.
“I’ll leave you two alone now,” the nurse says. With a nod, she leaves the room.
It’s a few seconds before anything is said. “So,” Rarity begins, “how are we doing today, Sweetie Belle?”
Silence. “…Hungry.”
“You want me to go get you something? I’m sure Applejack is more than willing to lend us some apples.” A pause. No reply. Rarity continues. “The hospital staff actually just got through inspecting the rest of the food for any further poisoning, and…”
She trails off. Shaking her head, Rarity reiterates her original question. “I-Is there anything I can get you, darling?”
More silence. It appears Sweetie Belle is only barely here. Did that poison leave brain damage? Rarity feels a sickening chill the moment the thought enters her mind. Before that thought can give birth to panic, Sweetie Belle speaks.
“...Had a dream.”
Another pause. “W-What was it about?” Rarity asks.
Sweetie Belle swallows. A look enters her eyes—one that’s hard to read. Fear? Sadness?
“I was on a road,” she begins. “Was a really long road. I was walking along with lots of other kids. Some of them I recognized from school, like Pipsqueak and Twist. The Cake twins were there, too.” A pause. Rarity breathes in sharply—those were the names of other foals who’d been poisoned.
Sweetie Belle continues. “And there was this pony. She was tall and pure-white. Almost like Celestia, except she was completely white, head to hoof. And she didn’t have any eyes.” She gulps. “She didn’t have any eyes but you could tell she was looking at you. So I was scared at first.”
Rarity feels a lump form in her throat.
“But when she looked at us, she smiled.” Sweetie Belle looks at Rarity more intently. “She was really pretty. Like you and Mom.” She raises her hoof and points at nothing in particular. “And she pointed to a real high mountain that was very far away. And on top of that mountain was a beautiful castle. Like… something out of a fairy tale.”
Rarity swallows, trying to kill the lump, but it remains steadfast.
“She told us… that castle was where we were gonna live from now on, and that we were gonna be really happy there.”
Hot tears start forming in Rarity eyes. She bites her bottom lip before it can quiver.
“So she took us there. Long trip. A lot of the path was really dark. But the white lady was there, so we knew we were safe.” She blinks. “I dunno how I know that, but I do. I just... felt safe with her.
“Then one by one, everypony started fading away. I got scared. Soon, it was just me and the white lady walking down that path. So I held onto her. And she told me not to feel scared: I was just about to wake up.”
Rarity feels a spasm within her and recognizes it as a stifled sob. She sniffs back a tear and holds her sister tenderly, not saying anything. This scene lasts for long, tired minutes before Rarity finally says, “Sweetie Belle, I love you.”
For the first time in what feels like ages, Sweetie Belle smiles. It’s not the same wide smile she had when she was whole and happy, but Rarity takes comfort in knowing it’s genuine. “I love you too, Rarity,” she responds. “You don’t need to tell me that. I already know. I always knew.”
The tears finally break, streaming down Rarity’s face as she kisses her sister’s head. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she whispers. “Sometimes… Sometimes I’m so stupid, I'm afraid you might forget.”
All the graves are empty. Strangely shaped mounds of mud dot the cemetery, along with what look like pieces of shattered lantern pottery. Quietly, Applejack walks across the length of the rows of graves. Her green eyes flick to the tombstones as she passes them by.
It’s odd to attach names to the creatures that attacked Ponyville, odder still to believe they’d once been ponies themselves. Once been alive. Once been loved. And happy, and hurt, and married. And had names, and had been like anypony else.
This sense of strangeness segues into melancholy as Applejack passes by each grave. Every single one had been destroyed, broken coffins lying neglected. Finally, she finds the two grave markers she’d been looking for the moment she passed those cemetery gates.
CORTLAND APPLE, Beloved Son, Brother, Husband, Father.
BELLADONNA APPLE, Beloved Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother.
Both graves are empty.
The dirt that held the coffins is scattered about, as are bits of wood. The coffins in the graves had their lids knocked off, the lids themselves lying a few feet away. Despite her wrangling with some of the monsters that attacked Ponyville, she elected to never tango with the zombies. Looking at the evidence that lays before her now, Applejack realizes she’d made the right choice. These zombies were freakishly strong if they were able to rise from their graves with this much brute force.
She removes her hat and holds it to her chest. A lonely wind blows by, playfully swatting at her mane and tail as it does so. For a minute or so, Applejack holds her humble position—head lowered, eyes closed, hat to chest.
Finally, she finds the words she feels she needs to say. “Ah’m so sorry,” she says quietly. “Ah’m not about t’blame myself, since nopony could’a seen any’a this comin’. But all the same, Ah wish Ah could’a done somethin’ about all this... besides what Ah done.”
“You only say that because the situation itself made you feel powerless.”
Applejack turns her attention to the dry voice coming from behind. Aeon draws near, stopping at her side. His horn glows, pulling out of his white jacket a pair of healthy red roses. He rests one by the side of Cortland’s tombstone and the other by Belladonna’s, then bows his head in respect.
Aeon comes back up. His dull gray eyes return to Applejack. “It is good that you choose not to blame yourself for something you were not responsible for. Too many waste their time with such pointless self-doubt.”
After some silence, Applejack places her hat back on her head. “Hey. Aeon?”
“If you intend to apologize for hitting me yesterday, please refrain from doing so.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Ah might be upset by how… aloof you been, but Ah had no right t’punch you like that.” She sighs and looks down, ashamed. “Or spit on you, either. My behavior yesterday was just… totally uncalled for.”
Aeon’s eyes are fixated on her, but looking at him, Applejack swears his mind is looking at something else. It’s a look of engrossed detachment, as if his attention can be in two places at once. Finally, he blinks, breathes deep, and says, “Apology accepted.”
Applejack releases a sigh she didn’t know she was holding. “Thanks for understandin’, sugarcube.” She pulls him into a bear hug. The squeak he makes as she does so indicates he didn’t expect it. “That made me feel worlds better.”
She pats Aeon on the back as she lets go. All of a sudden, Applejack laughs, relieved. “Hoo-wee!” she sighs. “Cain’t seem to get as many o’those as Ah need! ’Salmost like air—y’don’t even miss it till you ain’t gettin’ one.”
“…A hug?” Aeon asks, almost amused by Applejack’s exclamation.
Applejack raises an eyebrow. “What? Y’just ain’t never been hugged before?”
An awkward silence descends on the two. Applejack looks back to her parents’ graves. “Yeah, sorry,” she says, “Din’t mean that.”
More silence. Aeon shrugs. “That is all right. It is true; this one has not received a hug for…” His eyes flicker, as if attempting to tally a large number. “Well, a while,” he says, foregoing the math.
They share a short laugh, then fall silent again. Aeon clicks his tongue after a few seconds. “You know, your parents—and every other pony in this potter’s field—were not ‘risen’ from the dead in the usual sense of the term. Dracula’s servants include ethereal creatures such as ghosts, which often reach deep into the ground to possess and pull out the deceased.”
Applejack nods, a grim and bothered frown stretching across her lips. “So my parents were just playthings to him…”
“Everyone’s loved ones were,” Aeon says, motioning to all the other emptied graves. “It is his way. Everything is a game to Dracula and his minions. He cares not for what is important to anyone. His servants share similar selfishness.”
Applejack thinks for a second or so. “Even findin’ Dracula’s body parts? Ah’d think puttin’ my king back together would be more important than some game.”
Aeon smiles at her. “Take it from this one: immortality is very boring. It seems the older one grows, the more childish and impatient one becomes. If it will take them fifty years to put their master back together, they might as well make the most of it.”
Applejack more closely scrutinizes Aeon. “Fifty years? They been at this fer fifty years?”
“Give or take. Time passes differently in each dimension.” He checks the time on his stopwatch before snapping it shut and cocking his head back towards Sweet Apple Acres. “Speaking of, I think it is time we head back to your orchard. I will tell you everything you want to know on our way there.”
Applejack nods in agreement. As they turn to leave, she gives her parents’ graves one last, somber look before following Aeon out of the graveyard.
“So,” Applejack begins as they reach the entrance. “That Actrise said somethin’ about a Janine." An awkward pause. Applejack takes a deep breath. "If it’s OK fer me to ask... who was she?”
Aeon smiles sadly. Just mentioning Janine’s name seems to make the red jewel in his jacket pocket feel so much heavier. They round the corner, leaving the graveyard behind. “That is a very long story…”
As Aeon tells Applejack more about Janine, the sun above shines on the roses he had left between the tombstones, making them sparkle against the light. The lonely wind from before returns, pushing Belladonna’s rose towards Cortland’s, entangling them.
It's in her mind, then leaving without a trace as she slowly comes awake. It's almost as if Fluttershy is gradually emerging from a pool of water, from the water of dreams to the cold, biting air of morning. The dream she had was almost a terrifying one, but as she wakes up, she begins to forget it. She forgets the sound of a cracking whip, the smell of a body burning, the face of a thing long dead.
As she emerges from that dream-pool, the first thing Fluttershy feels is a nibble on her mane. She groans slightly as she turns in her bed. Last night had been the first night since all this madness started that she’d been able to rest in her cottage again, not that being in her own bed helped her find sleep. All she could think about were her little animals she’d buried in the front yard. The cold dampness on the pillow reminds Fluttershy vaguely that she’d cried herself to sleep the night before.
The nibble on her mane returns. Fluttershy sniffles a bit as she tries to open her eyes. They creak and groan as the darkness around her opens to reveal a blurry world. A small white blob wobbles slightly on a longer, pink blob before Fluttershy’s waking mind understands that Angel is chewing her mane to get her to wake up. Usually, Angel settles for kicking her in the flank if she oversleeps, but it seems he’s in a much more patient mood this morning.
“Good morning, Angel,” Fluttershy says as she sits up in her bed. She yawns and stretches as Angel looks up at her with a smile. Her fetlocks ache as she crawls out of bed and continues her morning stretches, arching her back, flapping her wings. She hears the clink of metal and feels a definite weight around her neck. Looking down, Fluttershy remembers she slept with the cross around her neck. She smiles.
Fluttershy then turns to Angel. “It’s all right, Momma’s gonna start some breakfast for you. The usual?” Angel nods, his big smile unfading. His eyes dart about as she yawns and exits her bedroom, wondering what she’ll think when she actually wakes up.
Still sleepy, Fluttershy carefully walks down to the kitchen, careful to not stumble down the stairs. She smiles as she recalls how many times she’d done that when she first moved into this cottage. She wasn’t used to living in a two-story building at the time, and was nearly always too groggy in the morning to watch where she was stepping on the stairs.
Fluttershy walks by the animals in the living room. “Good morning, everyone,” she greets them as she continues into the kitchen. “Hope everyone’s well res… ted…”
Her eyes widen as she realizes she’d just walked by the animals she thought had abandoned her. Fluttershy runs back out of the kitchen, now fully alert, and rubs her eyes to make sure she isn’t seeing things.
There, in her living room, are several of the animals who, only a week and a half ago, had turned into monsters. Only now, they are… de… Dracula-ized? What would the word to describe their current state be? Ah, yes—uncorrupted! Fluttershy’s friends are now uncorrupted, looking to her with the friendly furry faces she recognizes.
With a delighted squeal, Fluttershy dashes into the living room and pulls all her remaining critter friends into a group hug. In the middle of her joy, Fluttershy begins to cry. “I-I thought I’d lost all of you!” she says as she feels the hot tears roll down her face. Mr. Bear's massive paw wipes the tears away.
“How did this happen?” she asks. “I thought Dracula still had you under his spell…” The moment the word “spell” is out of her mouth, the answer pops into Fluttershy’s mind. “The spell! The spell that Twilight cast!” She begins to pace her living room excitedly. “It muted Dracula’s influence, not just on his loyal minions, but his reluctant ones, too!”
Fluttershy bounces around the room, giggling. Angel descends the stairs, and as he reaches the bottom, Fluttershy scoops him up into a hug. “Angel, did you see everyone?” Angel nods, his smile now more bashful than anything else. Fluttershy only notices now that the other animals are staring at them.
“Oh right—breakfast,” Fluttershy says quickly, blushing. She puts Angel on her back as she returns to her kitchen. “After being under such a nasty spell, I bet you’re all starving! I’ll be right back with some food.”
As she looks through her pantry for the feed bags, Fluttershy begins humming a merry tune, making a mental note to thank Twilight later. The cross around her neck clinks and jingles, almost as merry as the pegasus wearing it.
The sun is now rising in the sky. No sleep had come to Rainbow Dash the night before, evading her like an expert escape artist—Houdini-ing just out of her grasp before she could enter dreamland. The bags under her eyes are heavy, her aching muscles even more so.
She’d been trying to work herself into a state of exhaustion all night. Performing her tricks under the moonlight and the protective forcefield felt different from what she’d been used to. The wind in her mane was soulless without the warmth of the sun on her back. Either way, although it did much to tire her, it did little to ease her into sleep.
Her wings flap as hard as she can make them as she comes to a rest on the roof of the Ponyville General Hospital. She yawns as she stretches and lies down, forsaking the work it would take to form a cloud for her bed and settling for the hard rooftop. Once more, she closes her eyes and chases that Houdini act called “sleep.”
It escapes her again—laughing at her this time—as she hears a slow, quiet noise nearby. It sounds almost like something being filled. She cracks open an eye to get a better view of what’s causing the noise. She sees balloons of many colors floating in the air. She wonders how on Earth she'd managed to not see them before. Underneath them is an earth pony with a washed-out pink color scheme and a flattened mane.
“…Pinkie Pie?” she asks. Pinkie turns around, her blue eyes ancient and tired. “What the heck are you doing?”
Pinkie stifles a yawn as it tries to slither out. “I’ve been up here all night preparing for this morning.”
Rainbow Dash cocks an eyebrow. “What were you planning this morning?”
With a step devoid of her usual energy, Pinkie moves aside to reveal a helium tank. Behind it are more helium tanks, presumably empty. The hundred or so balloons hang suspended, tied to part of the rooftop’s pipeworks running along its ground.
“Where’d you get all this—” Rainbow Dash begins, before melting into “—oh right, balloon emergencies like this one.” She groans as she tries to stand back up. “Ya need any help?”
“I just need around four more balloons,” Pinkie says quietly. As Rainbow Dash helps her attach a balloon to the lip of the helium tank, she looks to Pinkie’s haggard form. The muted pink and flattened mane display more than mere fatigue. She says nothing until the balloon is almost full of helium.
“So, uh… what are all the balloons for?”
“One hundred and twelve.”
Rainbow Dash raises an eyebrow. “A hundred and twelve balloons?”
“One hundred and twelve victims,” Pinkie says somberly. She returns to her uncharacteristic silence as she ties the next balloon shut and ties its string to the pipe with its brothers and sisters.
Rainbow Dash swallows. Pinkie continues before she says anything. “Today’s the twenty-eighth of July. So every July twenty-eighth, I’m going to inflate a hundred and twelve balloons.”
“What are you gonna do with the balloons?”
Pinkie inflates the next balloon. “Let them fly,” she answers after some silence.
Rainbow Dash ties the second-to-last balloon to the pipeline. “So, uh... why're you gonna do this every year?”
Pinkie Pie starts inflating the next balloon. “When they decided to start burning the bodies of the victims, a lot of them went unidentified. The lobby in the hospital’s got entire walls of missing pony posters. Everypony assumes they’re dead.”
She finishes inflating it and gives it to Rainbow Dash so she can tie it down. “I’m scared they’re gonna be forgotten about eventually,” Pinkie says as she inflates the last balloon. “There’s nothing worse than dying… and then being forgotten about like you never existed at all.” Her bottom lip quivers as the helium tank quietly hisses into the balloon.
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widen at Pinkie’s suddenly negative attitude. “But they’re not going to be forgotten,” Pinkie says, her voice at a stronger volume. A tear rolls down her face. “Because I refuse to forget them. Every year, I’m going to inflate a hundred and twelve balloons—one for every victim.”
She ties the balloon’s tail shut and gives it to Rainbow Dash, who looks at her in awed silence. Slowly, Rainbow Dash takes the balloon and ties it down. Pinkie Pie takes a few steps back to observe her work. “It’s… how I want to remember them,” she whispers.
Rainbow Dash joins her in her admiration for a few seconds. She looks aside to her. “Pinkie,” she says with a smile, “have I ever told you how much you amaze me sometimes?”
Pinkie Pie meets Rainbow Dash’s eyes. Her color brightens as her mane inflates like the balloons. Finally, she smiles. Snorts a short laugh. “I’m not nearly as amazing as the friends I’ve made,” she says.
“Oh, that isn’t true,” Rainbow Dash retorts, giving Pinkie a playful shoulder-shove. “None of us would’ve thought to do this. This is really thoughtful of you.” Her smile becomes a bit saddened. “Their families... y’know, their families are gonna be really happy.”
Pinkie chuckles. She trots to the pipeline where all the balloons are tied and begins untying them. “Once a year,” she says.
Rainbow Dash helps her out, using a wing to cut the balloons loose, turning them into a billowing cloud. As they float above into the morning sky, filling it with a spectrum of vibrant and joyful colors, the balloons begin to part ways and spread out. Looking at them all makes Rainbow Dash think of a time in her life when everything was this grand and beautiful.
She puts a foreleg around Pinkie Pie and gives her a reassuring hug. “Once a year,” she agrees.
In Ponyville this morning, a pegasus repaired feeds her once-lost animals.
A pair of sisters reunited weep in each others' embrace.
A pony forgiven listens to a story of lost love.
A unicorn trapped lies in her prison cell as she is slowly devoured from the inside.
A pegasus defiled rests against his cot, still feeling cold and unclean.
A unicorn broken cries in the arms of her dragon assistant over a nightmare that has only begun.
In Ponyville this morning, a pair of friends watch the flock of balloons with a shared smile as their home wakes up to a breathtaking sight...
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"Even more thanks extended to those of you who started an account here on Fimfiction just so you could leave comments and follow it more closely." your welcome.:
: I like to thank you as well cause this story is also how I got into mlp. From tv tropes actually while looking for castlevaina fics. I read your early chapters and thought "wow he got the castlevania part down...maybe i should watch some mlp for context." So I watch the first episode..then the seconded, third.,forth...fifteen in one day.
Ended up watching all season one and two in about a week. Fast forward to here and now. Me and my sister have something we relate to now(she liked the show well before I did), I just bought a Twilight Sparkle shirt online, learning vectoring(big thing for me cause I never did much art), and I'm work on a few fics of my own.
So, when's My Little Castlevania Adventure chapter/part 1 gonna be uploaded?
BTW Whoever you are, you rock at this.
2522656 yeah, I found this fic while reading the kick the dog trope and checked the fanfic one out of couriosity. I've never read a fanfic before, but since I saw My Little Castlevania, I thought "Why not? My fav tv show plus my fav video game series". YEAH, YOU READ IT RIGHT, THIS IS THE FIRST FANFIC I'VE EVER READ IN MY WHOLE LIFE.
NOW FOR BOOK 2
Man, this has been one heck of an emotional rollercoaster. I feel sorry for poor Dee, she is now one of the few most hated pony, for the things she was never even able to control. I hope she get a chance for redemption.
Castlevania had ruined and destroyed many lives for its own sick reasons. But, even in the ill darkness, it seems that there are still those who still believed in hope. Heh, I know it is a bit sappy to say, but you know something, I don't really mind it. That music might be getting me sappy as well. Anyways, here hoping that douchebag of a castle get its metaphorical 'butt' handed to itself down the road.
Can't wait to see the next series. Great job with this, you did awesome!
2522656
Really? I didn't know my fanfic made that big an impact on your life. If nopony's said it before, then Welcome To The Herd! And let me know when you've completed writing that fanfic of yours--I want to read what you can come up with.
2522852
The only way to get better at anything is to keep doing it, putting the fear of failing in the very back of your mind.
2494818
Star Trek reference for the win. It's funny you mention that specific rivalry between Kirk and Khan, since the Twilight/Actrise rivalry will balloon into something equally fierce later on.
2523037
The next MLC will be posted within two months (So, counting today, sometime this July). I still have some other fanfics I gotta write, as well as the manuscript to an original story I plan on making a book out of. (Much like my fanfics, it involves unicorns and stark terror.)
I'm Brony_Fife. And I rock at this.
2523970
I'm honored that MLC is your first fanfic. Lots of people have rather negative opinions on fanfiction simply because the majority of it is written amateurishly. But that's where a lot of people are wrong: the word "amateur" actually means "lover." So yeah, we amateurs only write these fanfics because we love the franchises we write about, and we love to write. I love My Little Pony and I love Castlevania, and I love writing about them. Does it show?
2524793
Dee's not the only pony who could use a hug right now...
2526390
But my ADHD makes it difficult for me work on anything for an extended period of time.
But i had a few ideas for some crossover stories that i'v laid some ground work on.
The other idea I had is a Fire Emblem 9/10 re wright with Equestria getting caught up in the mad kings war and the events that fallow. That one might just too much for me as it would end being a little to long and i have to come up with enough ideas as to differentiate it from cannon POR/RD. The last one right now is a castlevania crossover of my own. But instead of cannon Equestria it would be set in a AU version of "Past Sins" involving Soma Cruze and rest of AOS/DOS main cast as they to save Nyx from Count Orlex's influence.(he's trying to have the reborn Nightmare Moon take the title of dark lord as he thinks he can control her) All while try to Soma from being reborn him self.
well it might be a while on that i mean with me it always start something work on it and then get board and try to work on it more later.
I just cant deside witch one I want to work more right now. One is a mlp/street fighter story with akuma fighting big mac, kinda a short story idea that moving rather slowly cause choreographing action scenes is not my strong suit.
Those are some of WIP ideas I have along side few none crossover stories I'm working on. But like I said my writing ability and intention span are sketchy at best and it well be some time before i get that think is good enough to publish.
(also as you can tell from my typing I have a real problem with missing a word of 2 here and there)
2526390
I know. Heh, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about them and I would like to hugged the poor souls. It is just that Dee seems to be still in danger, because of that seed, and she is almost hated by everyone except one pony (blessed his noble soul).
I personally feel that Twilight (at least) would be a bit suspicious if the really powerful, incredibly arrogant sorceress just suddenly went a complete 180 in personality and turned herself in.
Looking forward to the continuation though
2530979
They haven't had a chance to look her over yet. They'll get to that tomorrow. That is, the next day.
2534591 wouldnt just the fact that she turned herself in be really suspicious? Or do they simply not know at all yet that she is there? Because i kinda feel that Twilight would be the first pony they'd tell about it.
2534823
Good question. Let's see, how can I answer this without sounding like I'm copping out...
If the DeeXPokey scene is anything to go by, it would seem Shatterstorm wasn't the first to come across Dee as she lay on the grass, shuddering. Pokey Pierce finds her, and knows right away that something is terribly wrong.
Then, Shatterstorm shows up. He states that Dee is under arrest. Pokey Pierce has no idea what's going on, and asks what for. He rattles off a list of offenses, and while he does so, Dee attempts to escape. Shatterstorm notices and makes a grab for her, only to be intercepted by Pokey, whom he punches out.
All the while, Dee tries to run away, but is caught. Her cowardly behavior seems suspect to Shatterstorm, but he's too pissed right now to give a shit so he just hauls her in while leaving Pokey with a warning. (It's evident Pokey had no real idea what was going on, so Shatterstorm decided to go easy on him. No promises for next time, though.)
2534882 fair enough, but it probably would have been better if you'd have simply shown that scene in the story, instead of her just suddenly being in prison.
2535029
I heavily implied what had happened with the DeeXPokey scene. I'll have Twi and company grill Dee for info at the start of the next book, though.
2534882 yeah, didn't expected that one, now I feel like helping the poor mare that I used to hate (cause, at the time, I didn't expected her to be possesed, I THOUGHT SHE WAS ACTRISE IN PONY FORM). Hope that seed doesn't kill her, she doesn't deserve it
This is one of the best fanfics I've read period. Your writing style is top notch artistry and it made me feel. The balloon part in particular had me tearing up. Good work!
GREAT, MY LITTLE CASTLEVANIA HAS A CHARACTER SHEET IN TVTROPES
2065344
, I see Pinkie still very innocent to sex
I think this is the second good fic Jub has pointed me toward. I'll have to drop him another 'thank you,' it seems.
Great stuff, BF. Very well told.
2636175
Well, what can I say? Jub's a man of taste.
Anyway, which part of this story did you like or dislike and why? I gotta keep track of these things to improve.
2636510
BF,
Since you asked :)
Writing & Mechanics
I’ll start by getting the obvious out of the way -- you know how to write. Aside from a few spelling and typographical errors, which are inevitable in a work this long, I had no complaints about the mechanics of your writing. I do have a few observations, though:
You write in the present tense. There’s nothing wrong with this, and after a few paragraphs the novelty wears off and the reader no longer notices anything unusual about it. Some of my favorite authors – Jub and Sleepless, to name two – use present tense narration.
However, as you’re no doubt aware, outside of internet fiction, present tense narration is seen as a bit of a writing crutch. It’s rarely used in mainstream writing. This isn’t a positive or negative; it’s simply an observation.
Those embedded YouTube videos? I didn’t click on a single one. I already listen to music when I’m reading, and I don’t need some 8-bit fucking chiptune trying to provide immersion for me. Seriously, this is music by Konami. No offense, but your story deserves better.
(Side note: The music in Lords of Shadow was exceptional.)
The colored text thing you use from time to time felt gimmicky. I’m not sure it added anything to the story.
Narrative & Plot
I’ll start with what I think is my favorite part of this story -- the in media res opening. Another, weaker author could have taken this concept and spent the first four chapters explaining how Castelvania suddenly replaced Canterlot, what happened to the princesses, who Dracula is and who his followers are, etc etc.
You didn’t do that. First sentence in chapter 1 and we know something is terribly wrong. Castlevania is here, Equestria has been plunged into darkness, ponies are fearful, and the reader better catch up quick because this story is already rolling and it’s not slowing down.
I love that.
You have a strong command of the language. Evocative snippets like “The sun rises without its mother: it is awake and very, very afraid.” I won’t belabor this point, but it made your story a fun read.
Okay, now the bad stuff.
There are some composition issues with the plot. I’ll start with the two obvious ones: Roaring Yawn and Shining Armor.
We meet Roaring Yawn early in the first chapter. In fact, after Twilight and Shining Armor, he’s the third character we meet. He has a detailed backstory, many lines of dialogue, he seems to be driving the plot forward with his knowledge and plans. He is well characterized and much, much more than your standard background character.
This pony, the reader can tell, is going to be an essential part of the story. He’s going to be Twilight’s foil. Or! Or he’ll turn out to be in league with the villains, and doing his best to lead the heroes astray! He could be anything! But he’s obviously an important and critical part of the story because the author spent so much time describing him and building him up and involving him in Twilight’s conflict.
And then we never see him after chapter 3. Huh.
Anyway, moving on. Shining Armor! Twilight’s big brother, best friend forever, hero, leader of the resistance, saves her life in the dungeon. All the usual stuff we expect.
But! He’s been bitten by a vampire bat, and is now infected! His mind is slowly turning toward madness! He must be chained and muzzled, lest he tear out the throats those he once called friends!
Surely, the reader thinks, we have reached the critical plot point in this story. Twilight and Roaring Yawn must race to defeat Dracula and find a cure for Shining Armor’s infection before he is lost. Do they have enough time? Can they overcome the forces of evil and rescue Twilight’s brother?
Beats me, we never see or hear from him after chapter 3.
So... yeah.
Anton Chekhov once famously said, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." This has become known as Chekhov’s Gun.
Basically, if you introduce a character or plot device into a story, it needs to be used. Don’t introduce us to critical characters like Roaring Yawn, or show Shining Armor’s descent into darkness, if those characters and plot points ultimately have nothing to do with your story.
You do this in other places as well:
Aeon has given them more materials to work with: a bestiary documenting each of Dracula's minions, and an ancient book of spells Celestia told him Twilight would be interested in learning.
Followed by several paragraphs discussing the book, its spells, dangers, etc.
Aha, the reader thinks! A spell book filled with ancient, powerful magic! Surely this will be critical to Twilight’s success?
But no. We never see the spellbook again. Gone before its time, and we cannot even mourn its loss.
Also, Klaatu Verata Nikto? Yeah, it’s clever. It also breaks immersion and makes the reader chuckle, which isn’t something you want. This is a Castlevania story, not an Evil Dead story. The humor you got from Aeon showing his human form to Lyra is what you want to be using to break the tension. Drop the meta-references.
Finally, let’s talk about Applejack.
You lampshaded this in the latter chapters, so I assume you already realize she’s acting a bit odd. Granted, Ponyville was just invaded by Dracula’s minions, and that puts a lot of stress on a pony.
But damn, Applejack.
Here’s how I imagine her conversation with Big Mac went:
A few hours later...
I’m not really criticising, I’m just saying, wow, Applejack flipped like a switch.
To conclude I’m going to circle back to my earlier comment: this was a great story. Did it have flaws? Certainly, but every story has flaws. Whenever I look at my own stuff, they’re all I see.
You had a lot of great stuff in this story. If there’s ever a sequel, I look forward to reading it.
2637572
Each chapter's actually named after a song from the games, usually implying what's going to happen in the chapter itself. The fight against Dirt Nap is when the heroes face off against somepony who has a poisoned mind, for example, while Twilight constantly receives the image of bloody tears when she tries to sleep. Make sense? The Youtube embeds were really just there for the context. (Plus, I grew up on Castlevania. The soundtrack is one of the things I loved about the series, so to see you write such negative things about, while at the same time praising LoS's generic "epic" soundtrack really... rubs me wrong. No offense, but that's the most depressing thing I've seen today.)
This deserves an explanation.
That was actually used to separate "reality" from "nightmares." You'll notice that the red text only appears in the scenes where Twilight is having a nightmare while Shining Armor is talking to her, and in the scene where Sweetie Belle hallucinates that Rarity has turned into a monster. What's written in red is what they "see", while anything written out of red is what's actually going on.
I suppose I wanted to pull something different than
(writing all that nonsense like this)
And wrongly so. I found present-tense actually helps the flow of an action scene like nobody's business. The fact more published authors don't use present-tense bothers me, actually. I feel it's an underrated form of storytelling, since it compliments both the horror and detective noir genres more than past-tense does.
But there isn't anything anyone can do about that, since it's popular opinion, and there's no use going against it. It's like trying to punch a tidal wave.
This is where I tend to bother lots of potential readers.
I'm a huge tease when it comes to plot points.
Roaring and Armor are there for elements that are set up for the sequel. They'll be returning, just not in this book. (I think I may have stated elsewhere that the MLC story is going to be close to eight books long. Seriously. I have it all planned out and everything!
)
Several scenes have something happen in the foreground while something else is going on in the background. A good example of this is the scene in which Twi meets the Hospital Directors: we're introduced to more colorful characters, given another possibly important plot point, etc.
But then I casually mention that Spike has become more rebellious in the past year or so, which Twi can't say she cares for. THIS becomes an important thing to note, since Spike later comforts Shatterstorm with some very wise words against Twilight's wishes.
While the Directors Three and their forcefield will end up important later, I can't just put in obvious things and then act upon them in cliched and expectable ways. It's just not in me!
----
In short, much of the stuff I threw in was distraction while something bigger went on underneath it. That bigger something became the threat the heroes must face, and it wasn't expected. Don't worry, a lot of the stuff I talked about is going to show up again in Book 2. But what can I say? I love pulling this stunt on readers.
2638143
:/ I'm sorry, man. I love videogame music as much as anyone, but a chiptune is a chiptune is a chiptune.
Being a huge fan of OCRemix, I'd suggest seeing what remixes exist for some of these songs. For example, in chapter one you use "Within These Castle Walls" from Simon's Quest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZTcxqhKedAU
Alternately, here's an OCRemix version of that same song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cQBUDjiX-Qo
Personally? As someone who didn't grow up loving the Castlevania soundtracks (a demographic which includes most of your readers, btw), I'd rather have the second one playing while I read than the first.
Mind you I'm still not endorsing the idea of linking music in chapters.
Also, what's wrong with LoS's soundtrack? :( The way Belmont's Theme keeps popping up during the pauses in the action... man, that's one of my favorite parts of that game.
2638289 well, you know, not everyone has the same likings. I know what Brony-fife is going through, but in my case, it's worse. because for him is just ONE franchise that's ruined, but mine, it's a WHOLE company, namely, nintendo (well, only home consoles, handheld still kickass for me)
.
I might get some hate for this paragraph
: I became a CV fan quite recently (around 5 years ago), and I started with AoD, then AoS and CotM. then, I got the DS ones. As you can see, I started with metroidvanias, but that didn't stopped me to try one with classic gameplay. I started with Dracula X Chronicles (mainly because it has SotN, supposedly the best CV EVAH) and took opportunity to play it, AND Rondo of Blood (which was also included there). I had a good time with them, despite my preference with metroidvanias. Sadly, I can't say the same of the original CV and CVIII, I downloaded both on the virtual console, but I didn't liked them, Why? because the character's movements. They're too slow and clumsy, and I hate when a game difficulty lies on factors beyond your control, and the damage you receive later at the game is insane
. Contra (no code)? BRING IT ON 
, Super C (also no code)? :yaoming: 
, Super Mario Bros 3? YOU'RE MY BITCH, Ninja Gaiden? at least I reach the final boss 
, ninja gaiden 2? pretty difficult, but I least I finish it 
, but I can't handle the CVs. I finished the first (but istead of feeling satisfaction, I felt something like: OOOHHHH, I FINISHED IT, I FINISHED IT, FUCK YOU, YOU LOSE, I'LL NEVER TOUCH YOU AGAIN), and I don't feel like finishing the third (I don't even know if I'm past half the game
). I don't hate them, but I don't like them either, and I don't feel like playing them again 
.
Moral of story? Everyone has different tastes and likings, you can't force anyone to like the same things as you do, and it's cool to express your dislike for something, IF YOU TRIED IT BEFORE HAND
.
2638289
You might wanna ask me what's wrong with LoS itself, since the soundtrack is one very small chip in a quite-large pile.
There's a ton of reasons I hate Lords of Shadow. The story is generic, characters are flat, the actors sound like they don't care (Except when Patrick Stewart decides to go into Maximum Overham), and most importantly the gameplay is utterly, positively, irredeemably bland.
It tries too hard to be "epic" but doesn't move much beyond "whiny emo man-bitch on a personal mission", presenting Dracula's origin in a completely unbelievable and unconvincing story full of plotholes, predictable plot points, cliches, and deus ex machina. As a whole, it feels more like really bad fanfiction narrated by Patrick Stewart.
The music comes off as emotionally manipulative more than it does "epic". A soundtrack ought to fit the mood, not program the player into thinking the scene is something more than it is,which is largely what LoS's soundtrack does.
And of course, the gameplay. Let's be honest with ourselves. It doesn't feel like Castlevania, period. You don't take a completely different game and attach a brand name to it. Rare did that with Banjo-Kazooie--and look what happened. Of course, LoS sold well because of two factors:
1) It was marketed well.
2) It was familiar.
Let's face facts. Audiences don't like to be challenged by new things. You might think, well if that's true, why do games innovate? There's changing a few things, and then there's changing every fucking thing about the game. LoS changed everything about Castlevania, to the point where it was just Dante's Inferno, which was already a ripoff game based on a previous license it had no business being attached to. So in short, LoS was simultaneously different... and familiar. Screwy.
in short, I guess I don't like LoS very much simply because it was never made with Castlevania fans in mind. It was made for "modern audiences"--whoever those are--and will continue to cater to those audiences by remaining as tasteless and bland and ripoffy as Konami can possibly make it.
Sorry if this sounds like I'm going everywhere except for what you asked, but I'm only half-awake and tend to ramble--which is never a good mixture of qualities to have.
2639055
Dude, I play the original Castlevania like once a month and can usually beat it in one sitting. Lots of people complain about the controls, but to be honest, they were never too much of a problem. The gameplay is less how Simon Belmont controls and more about observing how the enemies behave. (But of course, either way, the Hall of Death is still a pain in the ass without a Triple-Block Holy Water. I think you know which Hall it is I'm talking about if you've actually beaten it.)
But it doesn't look like you played Super Castlevania IV or Castlevania Bloodlines. Now THOSE you need to go play! They were Castlevania at its 16-bit best--SCIV especially. If you've ever watched AVGN's Castlevania video, then you probably already know why.
Castlevania II is another one you ought to play, if only for its intense atmosphere. I think that's what I loved about CVII. The player is plunked into a terrifying, oppressive, and totally hostile environment. The monsters become stronger at night. Many of the villagers want Simon Belmont dead so they give him bad directions. Simon Belmont himself is rotting and dying from Dracula's curse. Easily, CVII's strength is in its atmosphere, since that's what'll hook you. (Figuring out where to go, however, will leave you grumbling while scouring the net for hints.)
2640874 I got SCV I'VE on virtual console, but I haven't tried it yet, but I expect to do so after this semester, I heard nothing but good stuff of it. Bloodlines ehhh...., I don't know of a legal way to play it (EMOlator to the rescue I guest
).
LOL, the so maligned CVII is actually MY favorite NES CV, precisely because of the atmosphere, but I admit I used guide, BUT HELL I HAD A GOOD TIME
, and I liked most of it's soundtrack, specially monster dance.
2640816 well, there's no pleasing everyone, you disliked LoS, and I disliked how Igarashi was leading the franchise. Sure it didn't got to the point of ruining CV, but I had a feeling it was heading that way. He made great CV games in his career, but let's face something, he practically left no time left for another setting since Lamment of Innocense, leaving clear setting only in the 12th to 14th centuries, and the 1800's( since order of ecclesia is so far, the only game in that era). oh, yeah, the 99 game that's still not out
. Making it hard to make new games without messing with the current canon.
But my biggest problem was with Harmony of Despair, no, it's not a bad game, in fact, it's pretty fun to kick butt with buddies, but everything was recycled. Characters, enemies, environments, bosses, items, etc, we seen all those previously, and that's what I dreaded
, IGA ran out of ideas for the franchise 
.
Not only I saw those problems, many others agreed with me, CV needed a some fresh ideas, a new mind behind it
, being LoS, remaking the whole classic timeline, making the Belmonts holy farmers facing evil mutant potatoes from hell instead of Drac 
, whatever, a reboot was inevitable, AND needed.
Then came LoS, not only it was a reboot of the whole franchise, it made changes to almost everything. Some fans liked it
, some others not 
, but there's something that can't be denied, CV it's still afloat because of LoS, like it, or not. It won't be here forever, Dave is tired of stating that LoS2 WILL be the end of LoS, period.
What will happen after LoS? Who will be the head behind CV? it will suffer another reboot or continue the classic timeline? only time will tell
2642994
So in order to save a beloved franchise from being discontinued, Konami turned it into something bland and just like every other action game on the market? What kind of world do we live in where those are your only options?
I hope they at least give CV to someone who knows how to make a good game without ripping off other people's ideas. Like WayForward.
Seriously, man. Give it ten years. We're all going to look back at Lords of Shadow as the odd duck of the franchise and wonder why the hell anyone liked it.
2645411I hope that we finally get Julius's 99 game, whoever leads CV post LoS. I'm tired of it's mention and not know WHAT IN THE HAY HAPPENED
2638289 HAHAHAAA, I love chiptunes
, though, the only ones I really liked in the CV games were the the Simon's Quest, since I prefer most remixes of the other classic ones (like circle of the moon Vampire Killer, since it was the first version I've ever heard). Though I like chiptunes, I always prefered orchestated music, like Symphony of the Night's ost.
Funny, I like to listen to CV music while I read this fic, problem is, most of the CV music that I know, are too upbeat for the general dark and depressing setting of the fic, so, I'm usually stuck with abandoned pit and door of holy spirits (both SotN) and stones hold a grudge (OoE). while the few battles scenes I used one of PoR (don't remember it's name) and this epic remix of Rondo of Blood's Dance in the Fantasmic Hell, renamed as Tues Meus Deus in Dracula X chronicles
2642994
Ya Iga was running a little low ideas after a while but he not alone when it comes to blame to for the resource reusing. Konami can take a lot the blame for that. After COM the budget for castlevaina became next to nothing. Mostly cause cause they had "Golden boy" Kojima and MGS to focus on(don't get me wrong i love MGS). That's why the other 2 gba games where a major downgrade from the first due to konami using a much smaller cartage. The 3 DS title suffered the same fate but this time the budget even worse. Hence the reuse of snes to ps1 sprites throu those days. Of course the ps2 titles a had a bigger budgets.(but still small for console titles)
Then when came to LOS konami also ended up tossing out the project in lue of iga's "next-gen" Alucard game. But then from what I've heard Kojima backed LOS and Konami said "shut up and take my money" and thus LOS got a HUGE budget for every thing from development to marketing and IGA was left eating dust.
Ironically MOF got a IGA style budget but the had to make a whole new engine with that(explains a few things)
Over all thou Castlevaia has been a victim of bad budgeting for quite some time and after LOS2 it will most likely good into the back room for a while so konami can get the next MGS tiltles out.
2649624 well, as I wrote before, after LoS saga ends, at least the original timeline will (most likely) be back after a well deserved vacation. But after LoS I don't expect it to be exactly as it was before, but, we have to wait to find out
off-topic: You know something? I can't picture Dracula as a vampire anymore. Every time I try to imagine him as such. He's identified as a vamp because it's mainstream, people love them, they're icons of horror, etc, but I just can't picture him as a vampire anymore. I see him more as a demon lord rather than a vampire, in fact, Shanoa in OoE called him demon lord Dracula, the his medal in the same game calls him demon king, and adventure rebirth's intro also uses the term demon king instead of vampire XD. Not a rant, not a complain, I don't have anything against it, just some random stuff I wanted to share
2649767
Funny thing about that is in the iga timeline Dracula is both Vampire and Demon king. Lucifer dose not exist or is still at god's right hand. Instead Dracula fill his roll(the title of lord of darkness isn't just for show)
2651573 actually, satan does exist, as evidenced by renon's dialogue in CV64 and the satan's rings in the sorrow games, hell, even the devil in circle of the moon MIGHT be him, due to his boss in mook clothing status. I got a speculation that he uses drac or any other dark lord as a medium to influence evil in earth to spite god, but as I wrote, is just a speculation
2651681
sry it took me so long to replay I just got home. Now when it comes to Satan's I remember reading tv tropes that may just be a miss translation and that when they say Satan they mean devil's ring. Witch can be linked to the devil monsters from DOS since the devil soul has the same effect as the ring. But the idea of Soma,Alucard,Julius,Yoko,and Hammer all teaming up to stop Lucifer once and for all sounds like a good idea for game doesn't it?
2654510 well, good point about it the mistraslation, but that might be more of by word than by meaning. I mean, I don't know if japanese people even have their own word for Satan, they might know him as the devil, it all depends of the culture and the language.
Hell yeah, I'd love to fight Satan for once in the original timeline, in fact, I dreamed to do so before they announced LoS. I mean, we got a game about fighting Drac and his demons, many from Christianity, Divine Comedy, Ars Goetia, and others demonized from other cultures (Aguni, Medusa, etc), but no Satan THE DEVIL HIMSELF. I expect him to be a superboss someday, like Galamoth and the Forgotten One, or a true final boss like Chaos.
2654573
If there was a game with satan as the final boss I think it would be set after the sorrow titles. Mostly going on the idea that as Dracula reborn Soma would actually be able to enter hell due to his former contentions to Satan. Of course rest of the sorrow would play large roles as well. Being in hell however would mean facing enemies from all over the series many who been waiting long time to revenge on the Belmont clan, And in a bit of twist we end up fighting the other 3 horsemen(War,Famine,Plague) along the way(where Death would fit in this I don't know yet).
One day remaining
2675953
One day until when? The next book isn't going to be to released until mid- to late June.
2676735 konami's pre E3 conference, want to see some good stuff
2677566
Better be good.
2676735 wait a minute, didn't you wrote that the second book will be released mid-late July, instead of June?
2677987 don't worry, it'll be everything but this
thanks nintendo, my faith in you was shattered thanks to that
seven minutes left
there's the link
Konami pre E3 conference here
and some music to raise the mood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e056R97svz8
2681120 You. Do. Not. Diss. Nintendo.
2748661
Not sure I know what you're getting at, Kamineigh. The whole shifting tenses thing doesn't start till Chapter 5.
Unless I accidentally missed a few spots here and there, which happened with a disturbing frequency near the start of this fic. I wouldn't be able to get into the proper swing of things until like... Chapter 8.
2749598
You're as subtle as an elephant made of bricks... and I still have no idea what you're getting at.
2748798
Yeah, it happened a bit early on. Might wanna fix that.
OH! And i finished it just as the sun is rising. HOW FITTING!