Act I - Chapter 6 - Beginnings(Rewrite)
The Alicorn Warrior
Written by iAmSiNnEr
Edited by Holtinater
Co-written by computerneek
Chapter 6- Beginnings
It wasn’t until Twilight looked at each of her old friends, after finishing her story, that she realized that they probably weren’t prepared for it. Serene Peace was the only exception, still blanketed under her wing and watching her with awe in her eyes.
As for the rest, Starlight’s blank stare reported that she had gone into denial. Rarity hadn’t; her eyes were wide with shock, her jaw hanging slack.. Fluttershy had both hooves over her mouth, and tears streaming from her eyes. Applejack’s eyes were wide, but she seemed to have acknowledged the necessity of Twilight’s actions. Pinkie had gone perfectly still, a forkful of pie forgotten just six inches from her mouth. Rainbow, ever the competitive spirit, looked in equal parts horrified and intrigued.
Twilight grinned sheepishly and waited patiently for them to recover.
Eventually, Rarity became the first to respond. “You-you killed griffons?”
Twilight nodded calmly. It was much easier to think about when she considered the alternatives. “It was either that or let them force hundreds, nay, thousands of others to kill each other after my defeat. I’ve re-evaluated my decisions that day many times, and have yet to discover a way I could have killed fewer.”
Rainbow nodded aggressively. “Well of course. Sometimes, in order to prevent a larger disaster, you have to cause a smaller one yourself.” She shuddered. “That was not an easy Wonderbolt lesson to stomach.”
“We shoulda been there for ya, Twi,” Applejack murmured, staring at the table in front of her.
Twilight shook her head. “You should not have been,” she answered. “You wouldn’t have survived the torture up to that point anyways- I only did because I am an Alicorn.” She sighed. “Which reminds me: How did you get here? Did Celestia banish you too?”
Pinkie bolted instantly from her trance. “No, of course not, silly! The morning after you were banished Starlight was like ‘why is she late’ and then ‘no she wouldn’t be late’ and then she looked for you and then spiketookalettertoCelestiaforherandthen-!” She took a deep breath of air. “Andheneletiarriedadtodusbouhowhemdeaorrbleistkeadthn…”
Twilight smiled and watched calmly as Pinkie steadily spoke faster and faster and Faster and Faster as her story developed, already well beyond the comprehension of any pony present. Even though Pinkie got to sounding a bit like a swarm of bees towards the end, it still took her nearly two full minutes to finish her story.
Pinkie took one last breath in her story, and slowed way down. “And then you arrived and here we are!”
Twilight chuckled softly. “Did you just describe the last four years in detail?”
Pinkie nodded, as if it was obvious. “Well yes?”
“Could you perchance write a book about it?”
“Abso-!” She vanished in a puff of dust.
Serene Peace let out a startled squeak.
“-tely!” Pinkie finished, reappearing with a large stack of parchment, two pre-printed hard covers for a book called ‘The Journey through the Badlands to Rescue Princess Twilight’, several bottles of ink, a quill, and a receipt from Quills and Sofas in Ponyville.
“Gah!” Rainbow yelped, as Pinkie started scribbling. “What- How-!” She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “No, not how, that was Pinkie Pie.”
Twilight chuckled. “It ought to be a pretty good read. In the meantime…” She looked at the rest.
“So, ah, Celestia visited the day after she… well, did it, and explained that it was a horrible mistake,” Starlight informed her. “Something about being ‘influenced’. So she made us ‘wardens of the land’ and sent us to bring you home.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “First of all, you do not want to talk about that around here- or anywhere else in the Badlands, for that matter. Last time a Warden became public knowledge, they were tortured and forced to let almost three thousand banished criminals back into Equestria before they died.”
“... Then…” Rarity muttered.
Twilight nodded. “And this isn’t the place to talk about that, either.”
“Then where-?” Rainbow asked.
Twilight smiled, saluted with a hoof, and spoke. “Follow your gut.”
Then, she disappeared, completely silently, into thin air, mere moments before Gusty Serenity glided smoothly to a landing just outside the cafe and trotted casually in, humming a tune to herself.
“Why didn’t I see this the first time we were here…?” Starlight wondered aloud, looking up at the massive structure in front of them. Gusty Serenity- who the party knew was actually Twilight- had declined to have the time to chat further, but had mentioned knowing somepony by the name of Quick Brush who, apparently, liked the Sneaky Sparkle as much as she did, and would be able to chat more than she.
“Uh, because we weren’t looking for it?” Rainbow asked, one eyebrow raised.
Starlight shook her head. “No, no. This place is practically steeped in her magic. Why didn’t I notice that before?”
Right on schedule, before anypony had gotten close enough to knock, the front door flew open and Twilight stepped out, completely undisguised and uncloaked. “You just answered your own question,” she informed Starlight. “This place is steeped in magic. Specifically, stealth magic; on your first pass through town, it would’ve simply not existed- I designed these spells to hide from every known detection spell.”
“What-!? Then how-?”
She shrugged. “Easy: You’re now included in said stealth, so it won’t hide from you.” She sighed. “Come on in. This is my house; Quick Brush is just the latest alias name I’ve come up with for whenever somepony inevitably discovers it. I haven’t yet had to use any of them, knock on wood.”
“Well, you can come back to Equestria,” Spike offered. “Then you shouldn’t ever need to use them.”
Twilight chuckled softly. “No, I can’t just go back to Equestria, Spike.”
“But your friends,” Spike pleaded. “Your family. Ponyville. The Princesses. They all need you!”
“Ahh, Spike?” Rarity interrupted, gazing at the walls of the massive entryway.
Spike looked.
“Something tells me the Equestrian border patrol is not the only thing keeping her here.”
Twilight smiled softly and waited quietly while all six ponies and dragon stared around her entryway.
“... Wow,” Rainbow eventually spoke. “This is… way more like a home than the Crystal Castle ever was.”
Twilight nodded. “Or, as I like to call it, the Crystal Monstrosity. Yes… this is my home, and being able to walk on Equestrian soil will not change that. I imagine it’ll be interesting to hear Celestia’s explanation for what happened.” She gave a soft chuckle.
“Ooh, Ooh, Ooh!” Pinkie pranced on the spot, waving her completed book in the air. “Read this! She told us!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow, accepted the book, and opened it to the first page.
Hardly fifteen seconds later, she closed her eyes, and the book, together, and sighed. “I see I need to give you a lesson or two on punctuation usage, Pinkie,” she mused. Then she looked across the rest. “Is it true that you set out the day after I was banished?”
Rainbow nodded. “Been looking ever since.”
“Why did it take you so long to find this town, then? It took me less than two weeks on a random walk.”
They flinched.
“We, ahh, had a map,” Starlight muttered.
Twilight let out a laugh. “Ahh, of course. The easy mistake of assuming your target had a map too. And in my case, not usually wrong. However, I didn’t memorize any Badlands maps before my banishment, soo…” She let out a sigh. “Well, you’re here now. How has the desert been treating you?”
“Not… Not too bad,” Starlight answered. “I mean… we have had rather regular supply drops from the Equestrian Royal Guard- including at least a few picnic baskets.” She gestured towards Rarity, who was neither looking nor listening.
Right on cue, Rarity turned back towards Twilight. “Might I ask where you got these amazing paintings from?”
Twilight blushed, looking around the entryway. “Um…” Nearly every wall surface was hung with paintings- some of the night sky, a couple landscapes, one of Ponyville before the Crystal Castle had appeared, several murals of her various battles in the Arena. Portraits of each of her friends, bearing wide smiles on their home properties, doing what they enjoyed. Even Starlight was there, wearing a cheerful smile while standing at the head of her Town of Equality- which was something Starlight could swear she had never done, much less in front of Twilight. It didn’t help that the few other ponies in the fringes of the painting, citizens of that town, had their cutie marks.
“Woooow,” Pinkie announced.
Starlight looked around. “Who painted them?” she asked.
“Well, about that,” Twilight muttered.
“You did ‘em, didn’t ya?” Applejack asked.
Twilight sighed, and nodded. “It turns out that if you fling enough paint at enough canvas during your free time, you’ll eventually end up with something halfway decent.”
“Halfway decent?” Rarity asked, horrified. “Halfway Decent!? No, this is amazing! Beautiful!” She looked back out at the paintings. “I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good, darling!”
Twilight snorted. “Oh, no, that’s only a poor imitation. I’ve seen you looking far better than that.”
“Poor imitation!?” Rarity screeched.
“I know Ah’d like to hear how all this started,” Applejack injected loudly.
“Me too!” Pinkie announced.
Rainbow rolled her eyes.
Twilight sighed. “Yeah, I suppose I do owe you that much, don’t I? Here, the lounge is right in here.” She led the party through an open doorway into a well-appointed sitting room, lit the fire with a brief pulse of her horn, and sat down in her armchair, waiting patiently for everypony else to pick seats of their own, amongst the couches and armchairs near the fire.
“A fire?” Rainbow asked. “Out here?”
Twilight nodded. “It can get mighty cold at night- besides, I was the Alicorn of Magic, remember. This room is always the perfect temperature for a fire.”
“... Oh,” Rainbow muttered.
Finally, Fluttershy was the last to take a seat.
Twilight looked into the fire. “Well… When I was banished… I basically floundered my way through the desert until I got here. Like I said, almost two weeks- only, Quick Leash found me collapsed on the sand not far away.” She sighed. “When I woke… I was convinced that it was one of the worst days of my life.”
The Better Part of Four Years Ago...
Twilight opened her eyes wearily to see the blankness of stone-paved walls. She was lying down on the floor, and she was in some kind of...cell? For some unknown reason, her throat was no longer parched and she actually wasn’t hungry for once. Somepony must have fed her and given her water to drink while she had been unconscious.
She tried to rise up on all four of her hooves, but she collapsed at the mere effort of extending her legs. Even when lying on the floor, her knees trembled and her hooves still ached, evidently still weak from her ordeals in the desert.
“Hello? Anypony... There?” Twilight called out.
Only silence greeted her.
She struggled to her hooves and stumbled again back towards the cell door. She pulled at it with her hooves and it didn’t budge one bit.
Alright, magic time.
She grasped her magic and cast a simple levitation spell to pull the door open. However, what she didn’t expect was for pain to suddenly erupt in her horn and her magic to dissipate rapidly. Twilight cried out in pain as she felt that her magic was restricted by some unknown barrier.
Twilight looked up towards her horn and realised that there was an inhibitor ring imbued with runic symbols restricting her magic.
Who...who would do such a cruel thing?
“Awake, are you?” A voice rang from the cell door. Twilight turned around and saw a white coloured unicorn standing there, staring at her impassively. He lit his horn and a key inserted itself into the keyhole of the cell door. He beckoned for her to follow him. “Come, the boss wishes to see you.”Twilight stumbled across to the cell door and followed the stallion.
“Where are we?” Twilight asked. “Why do I have an inhibitor ring on my horn?” He kept quiet and led her through a labyrinth of doors and corridors and finally after ten arduous minutes, they arrived at a brown coloured door. The stallion opened the door and she trotted in. Instantly, a few things stood out to Twilight at the moment she entered.
There was a chair facing away from her directly across her and four griffons with swords by their sides hanging there. There were also another three unicorns standing next to the door staring at her emotionlessly. As Twilight trotted in the room, the door closed behind her as the unicorn who had led her here entered and took his place beside the other unicorns.
“Hello?” Twilight said nervously. The chair slowly spun around and there was a white coloured pegasus sitting there.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” he stated. “So nice of you to join us in the land of the living, princess. It was touch and go for a while, wasn’t it? The rumours that alicorns are immortal aren’t true, I take it?” Twilight slowly nodded.
“Forgive me if I don’t show the proper respect you deserve. After all, my father was banished by your precious Princess of the Sun, and I have no love for any of the Equestrian Princesses.” Twilight swallowed. This wasn’t looking to be in her favour.
“If you could take off the inhibitor ring and allow me to send a letter back to Equestria, I’m sure I could do something about your situation-” Twilight began.
“No,” the pegasus interrupted. “I quite enjoy what I’ve built for my life in the Badlands, thank you very much.” He smiled. “I just realised I haven’t given you my name yet, have I? It’s Quick Leash.”
Twilight pawed at the ground nervously with her hooves. “What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Straight to the point, Sparkle. I like it.” Quick Leash smirked. “As for what I want from you… I saved your life. I’d like something in return, and you’re going to give it to me no matter what you say. I’d like your life.” Twilight stumbled backwards in shock.
“My-my life? But you just-”
“No, Sparkle. Not that way. You belong to me now, and you will do as I say. I don’t care that you used to be a princess, that does not matter in the Badlands. You will work for me, and if you behave, I will consider letting you go once you’ve earned me enough.”
Twilight swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”
Quick Leash grinned. “I own an arena, Sparkle. I guess you can connect the dots from there.”
“No! I won’t fight for your sick games, Quick Leash!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Now, now, Sparkle. You can either come quietly and fight for us of your free will, or you can be forced. Choose now, Sparkle.” Quick Leash smirked. As far as he was concerned, the debate was over.
“I will not fight,” Twilight stated. Quick Leash sighed.
“So be it. Guards, take her to her first match and do not give her any proper weapon. A knife will do for her defiance. This could have gone better, Sparkle. I could have given you partial use of your magic back, but you didn’t want to co-operate with me.”
“Match? What do you me-” The unicorns lit their horns and lifted her up in their magic. Twilight struggled fruitlessly as they levitated her outside the room.
“Learn or die, Sparkle! That’s the only rule of the Badlands!” Quick Leash called out as the door to the office was closed.
The unicorns threw her into the arena, before shutting the gates behind her. A knife was left on the ground, and Twilight picked it up hesitantly. She didn’t want to fight, but what choice did she have?
Once the audience realised that an alicorn had just entered, they all went silent, murmuring among themselves. An earth pony on the podium walked up to the front and cleared his throat. A unicorn beside him lit his horn and the earth pony began to speak, his voice magically amplified.
“Today, folks, we have a special treat for you all! We have an alicorn fighting in the arena! I promise you nothing less than a day full of excitement here! She’s still fresh, but I’m sure she’ll prove herself magnificently in the fight today!” The earth pony yelled to the crowd. “And now, for her first opponent, a desert wolf, freshly captured from the desert!”
The gates on the other side of the arena opened, and a desert wolf was thrown into the arena. It got up almost immediately and snarled at Twilight.
“Will she survive this? All I know is that it will definitely be interesting!” the announcer yelled. “As for every fight here, it is a fight to the death, and there are no rules!”
A fight to the death? Twilight stumbled backwards in shock. She didn’t want to die! The desert wolf snarled at her one final time, before leaping towards, fangs bared ready to sink into her. Twilight flapped her wings hard and flew upwards, dropping the knife in the process.
“And she dodges!” the announcer happily told the audience.
Twilight landed down on the opposite side of where the desert wolf was and looked towards the wolf. It was stalking her, legs crouched, preparing to lunge at her again. She looked up for a second towards the top of the arena, considering her options to escape. She could fly out, but she realised that there were griffon guards flying above the arena, ready to stop her from doing what she had been planning to do.
While distracted, the desert wolf leapt towards her and sank its jaws into her shoulder. Twilight cried out in pain and lifted her hind hooves to buck the desert wolf. Her hooves connected with the wolf and sent it flying. The audience gasped as one.
Twilight looked down at her shoulder. It was bleeding from the bite, and the wound wasn’t small. Twilight winced as she tried to move her shoulder; it was useless now. Suddenly, the wolf leapt at her again. Twilight stumbled backwards in surprise and tried to fly away. The wolf barely missed her hooves as she flew upwards. She couldn’t stay in the air forever, her shoulder was causing her too much pain.
Twilight landed down on the floor of the arena again, and this time, the wolf was circling her, wary of her flying away again. It bared its teeth at her, blood evident on its fangs from when it had bitten her. She needed to do something, or else she was dead. She picked up the knife and pointed it towards the wolf, her hoof trembling to hold it straight.
The wolf growled at her. As it circled her, she realised something. The wolf was limping, with one of its hind legs weak from where she had bucked it. Twilight could use that to her advantage.
The wolf snarled once again and lunged. Twilight dodged nimbly aside, wincing as her shoulder hurt. Lifting her forehooves, she brought them down onto the wolf’s weak leg. The wolf howled in pain as the bones in the leg crunched and broke. She then spun around and bucked it in the face, sending it flying.
Thank you Applejack, for all those times you taught me to buck, Twilight thought as she steadied herself. She looked towards the wolf. It was struggling, unable to get up with a broken leg. It howled once and fell silent. It stared at her with eyes that seemed to say, finish it.
Twilight stared back. Even if the wolf wanted her to kill it, she couldn’t. It was a living thing, and it didn’t deserve to be forced into the arena like her. Then she remembered something Fluttershy taught her.
If somecreature is dying, it is merciful to put them down, Twilight. Fluttershy had said. It’s better to give them the release than just let them suffer from the pain.
Twilight approached the wolf warily, the knife in her hoof. The wolf gazed back at her, its eyes defiant. As she approached, the wolf struggled to its legs and lifted its head up. It howled its final howl, its voice full of pain and defiance. It then turned to meet her and closed its eyes. It had chosen to die proud and unbroken. Twilight closed her eyes and brought the knife down.
The wolf went limp and collapsed, the knife sticking out of its neck. Twilight had chosen that area so as to give the wolf a death as painless as possible.
Twilight sat down, her shoulder hurting as the blood streamed down slowly. Twilight concentrated and pulled on her earth pony magic. As she watched, the wound slowly closed. Princess Celestia had taught her this- an ancient earth pony method. Before this, she had thought it useless, but now she was grateful for it.
She turned towards the announcer. Up till now, she had ignored him, choosing to concentrate on the fight as much as possible.
“The alicorn has defeated her first opponent, but will she defeat her next one?” The announcer happily asked the audience. Twilight stiffened. There was another one for her to fight?
“Her first opponent was weak, and she defeated it easily! But her next opponent has proved himself in battle twice, ending the fight swiftly with his axe! Mares, gentlecolts, dragons, kirins and other creatures, give it up for Bruto the Minotaur!” the announcer roared to the crowd.
The crowd roared in excitement as the gates on the other side of the arena opened, letting a minotaur step out, twirling an axe in his hands. Twilight backed up away from the wolf’s corpse as he straightened up to his full height.
He was taller than the average minotaur, and his horns were longer than Iron Will’s. His eyes showed no emotion as he looked at Twilight. She couldn’t do this, she was almost spent on her strength just healing her shoulder.
“I am Bruto. And you will die.” The minotaur rumbled in a deep voice.
“And… begin!” The announcer yelled. As the crowd cheered, the minotaur rushed towards her, axe lifted up to end Twilight’s life swiftly. Well, she was having none of that. Twilight spread her wings and flapped them, hard.
As the minotaur swung his axe, it sliced below her hooves as she struggled to gain altitude. “I don’t want to fight!” she cried out. Bruto looked up towards her and smiled sadly.
“You will fight. If captors see we are not fighting, they will kill us themselves.” He pointed up. “You see those griffons with crossbows?” Twilight looked up.
“So either I kill you, or you kill me. There can only be one survivor, pony.” Bruto declared. “And you flying doesn’t help you.” As he said this, he pulled back the axe and tossed it towards Twilight. Her eyes widened as she barely dodged aside. As the axe fell towards the ground, he caught it.
Twilight landed down on the ground and eyed Bruto warily. He was twirling his axe and was considering her. As she looked at him, Bruto lowered his head and charged. Eyes widening, she dived aside, Bruto’s horns grazing her hind hooves.
As she spun around, the axe glinted as it swung towards her. Twilight dodged and galloped full pelt for the corpse of the wolf. She would need the knife if she wanted a chance to survive. Reaching the wolf's corpse, she tugged the knife out of the body and spun around, just in time to use the knife to parry the axe headed for her neck.
Twilight grunted as the strength of the swing pushed her back. The knife wasn’t enough to counter such strength and an axe. She needed more.
Twilight flapped her wings as Bruto swung the axe again, this time for her hooves. Narrowly dodging the axe, she threw the knife towards Bruto, the sharp edge first. Bruto easily knocked the knife aside with his axe and lunged for her.
Twilight banked towards the left as Bruto tried to grab her hooves. A glint in the corner of her vision. A griffon guard stood near the gates with a sword on his side. She needed that sword. Putting on speed, she collided into the griffon, the griffon crying out in surprise. She kicked the griffon in the head, knocking him unconscious. The audience gasped at this. This was the first time one of the fighters attacked a guard.
Twilight quickly grabbed the sword. As she did so, she heard snippets of the announcer’s voice.
“The alicorn has taken the initiative and gotten a better weapon! What will she do with it, I wonder?” Twilight grimaced. She didn’t want to use the sword, but the minotaur gave her no choice. That pegasus, Quick Leash was to blame for all this. Hate bubbled to the surface as she dodged the axe swing yet again.
“Hold… still!” Bruto grunted.
“No!” she replied. This time, Twilight was the one to swing her weapon. Bruto parried it easily and knocked her sword aside.
“Nowhere to run now, pony,” Bruto stated. He lifted the axe and brought it down. In her desperation, Twilight did the only thing she could. She created a barrier with her magic instinctively, and the axe slammed into it. Twilight opened her eyes. She… could feel her magic! As the realisation hit her, she looked up to see the inhibitor ring smoking from the amount of raw magic she was forcing through it.
Bruto backed up warily as she got to her hooves. As Twilight looked towards Bruto, she discovered what had happened. Her raw magic had been too much for the rudimentary inhibitor ring to handle, and she had forced through enough magic for simple spells. Twilight tested her boundaries. She couldn’t cast a teleportation spell, not yet.
Bruto lifted his axe and swung. “Even with magic, you cannot hope to beat me!” he roared as his axe connected with Twilight’s sword, lifted up just in time to block the axe. Twilight concentrated and pulled on her earth pony strength.
“Yes..I…can!” she screamed as she pushed the axe back. Twilight spun and swung the sword towards Bruto. This time, Bruto was too slow and the sword sliced into his side. He roared in pain and lunged towards her, hands outstretched to grab her.
Twilight dived aside and got up quickly. Her eyes widened as the axe bit deep into the floor beside her, barely missing her neck. Panicking, Twilight shoved Bruto away with her magic. Bruto stumbled and fell down, hitting the floor face first.
“Please don’t do this,” she begged. “I don’t want to kill anypony!”
Bruto pushed himself off the floor. “Well, I do!” Lifting his axe, he swung it with all his might. Twilight brought the sword up to meet it. As the sword hit the axe, it resisted for a moment, before breaking into pieces. Bruto grinned. “You’re done for, pony!”
Dropping the broken sword, Twilight scrambled back on her back as Bruto swung, again and again, the axe barely missing her. “Don’t!” she pleaded. Bruto ignored her pleas and swung again. Twilight closed her eyes. She hated what she had to do next. As Bruto lifted his axe for the final blow, his eyes widened. A knife had just been driven through his chest from the back, the barest hint of Twilight’s magic on its hilt.
Bruto met Twilight’s eyes. “Good...fight…” he whispered softly before he fell to the ground as his breaths steadily got lesser. He had made the fatal mistake of underestimating Twilight. As she looked at Bruto’s unmoving body, she collapsed on her knees, strength spent and sobbed.
“And the alicorn wins! I sure didn’t expect that, did you all?” The announcer yelled as griffons flooded in, grabbing Twilight and fixing a newer inhibitor ring on her horn. Twilight hung limp, sobbing quietly as they dragged her away to her cell.
The griffons threw her into the cell and locked the door. Once they had left, Twilight buried her face into her hooves, curled up and cried.
Present times, Back in Equestria
Princess Celestia strode out to the balcony of Canterlot Castle, where her subjects were waiting outside for her announcement. She steadied herself and stood up straight.
“Hear me, my little ponies!” She declared. “I have good news, for taxes have been lowered again!” She grinned as the ponies cheered, their love for their diarch showing even more than ever. She then trotted back into the castle. As the doors closed behind her, a laugh rang throughout the empty castle.
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yep, new chapter
10453709
Did, did you comment yay on your own story? Anyway YAY. Also oh crap something's wrong with Celestia.
chrysalis!
10453736
yep, she went mad with grief over what she did.
10453763
10453764
Both possible.
Yup, that's pretty much what one would expect from a pony like Twilight being forcibly introduced to a gladiatorial arena.
I got a baaaad....... feeling about this.
The Mane 5 sound extremely self centered right here.
10453763
Maybe it's Chrysalis but only recently.
Maybe after impersonating Celestia for a few weeks, she made the whole act how wrong and how sorry she felt for Twilight ,etc and then send the group to her so they won't interrupt her.
I think the real Celestia still thinks that she is right and decided to solve the situation like with Sunset Shimmer
10453811
Then if that's the case. The Real Celestia is a Idiotic Bitch, and just DOOM herself, and Ponykind. For punishing the WRONG Pony ( Twilight).
She’s finally gone senile!
I feel like we've read that fight scene before, but it's still a pretty good battle. Nice to see Twilight's done well for herself in the present, though.
In terms of Celly... yeah, something's definitely up.
Never be sorry about needing to study for school over writing pony stuff. Good luck on your exams!
10453811
i think it's been Celestia since the beginning.
there are two keywords;
love
empty.
Do with that as you will.
Changelings. Changelings everywhere!
10453923
Time for some big brain analysis in the comments.
Twilight, the is a standard rule of all artists. You will always look on your works and despair. The rest of us see beauty and greatness; only you see all the critical flaws and failures that don't exist except as a different between your original imagination and the final product.
In other words, your art is perfectly --
WHAT The Celestia?!
I sense shenanigans involving a certain cheeseleg are afoot (ahoof?).
At least if it is changelings then it explains why Luna has done nothing throughout all of this.
Oh nothing much... just culture shock. No big.
This sentence is probably the best example of simple story writing. This sentence is grammatically correct, nothing is spelled wrong, and it correctly describes the scene, it isn't robotic, but it is flavorless; there aren't any exciting words in the sentence to make it interesting to read. Also: "... and the wound wasn't small" I think I understand the concept of voice enough to say that that description is poor. "And the wound wasn't small" describes the fact in the most literal sense, that the wound was probably big, and in the subtext, that the wound was likely very painful, and bleeding quite a lot, as attributed by the earlier phrase. However, "and the wound wasn't small" isn't interesting to read, the fact that it's such a non-descriptive phrase, and that it creates a strange input of the writers voice into the text... I just had to stop reading right there. The sentence pulled me out of the story and caused me confusion, and very, very mild irritation.
Now I'm no writer, in fact, I really don't have the dedication to write any long story, but take a look at this:
They both convey the same information, but one of them has much more flavor and word variation. There's more meat, outside the literal description. There are a couple more sentences in here that I noticed were like this, but I settled on this one to talk about.
As a side note. I know Twilight is a freaking badass, but if you're going for the, (in her first and second fight), 'her being scared and sad' I would recommend her quipping less during the fights. She's about to die and has to (in her eyes) become a murderer to survive, try going with a more silent sort of haunting demeanor until she gets back to the cell, followed by her just staring at the wall with tears running down her face. I feel would make her attitude, and the situation she's in be more impactful to the reader.
AND as a side side note:
There are three main techniques when defending yourself from an attack from a bladed weapon. The first is to not be there which Twilight was using very well for most of that fight. The second is to block, which is using the forte of your blade, (the base, and the area slightly above the base) to block all of the force in the opponent's swing. The third is to parry, which involves putting your blade at an angle, having your blade act as a wedge in order to redirect the attack, lessen the force, or both. These sentences above claim that Twilight pulled out the dagger with her hooves, spun around, and then parried an attack going for her neck. Now, if the swing was going for her neck, that means that the swing was most likely coming from her sides. If she parried an axe swing coming from the side, it would have to have gone overhead, or down into the dirt. What happens instead is the description for if Twilight had full-on blocked the axe swing rather than parrying it. Now I can 100% believe that Twilight could block that blow, Alicorn earth pony strength. It just confused me because I was trying to figure out the scene, and the words didn't correlate to what was described.
I think I sound pretty accusatory in all this, and please don't feel like I'm attacking you. I get a little irritated when I see simple mishaps in a good story, and all of this is to help describe elements that... I just wanna help, you know?
-Noobblue
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I will take note of this and try to fix this with my editors :)
"who said something about me being addicted to SoL?"
What is SoL?
Hmm... the flow kinda breaks apart on this one... and that snippet with Chryssi-Lestia at the end comes completely out of nowhere with nothing to foreshadow it aside from comments. For example, Celestia had most definitely not been replaced during and immediately after the banishment; Chryssi could never have banished Twilight, nor have granted "Warden of the Land" powers to her rescuers.
Considering this was also the first chapter since I stopped co-authoring, for reasons I can't even remember... the discontinuity in story flow & style can probably be attributed to that.
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actually, if you notice it says it's "present day", so my guess is, Chrysalis' plan was to get the Elements out of Equestria so she could take over.
So first two chapters - Real Celestia, possibly influenced by charm/suggestion into banishing Twilight. Sends the other 7 after her, and after she's alone Chrysalis replaces her.
Well hello there Chryssy
Ah, now we know what happened to Celestia. Still though, that first chapter needs much more flourish to have Celly's OOC be subtly insinuated as actually not normal in-universe.
Ah, Chrysalis.
Well, this sucks.