• Member Since 9th Nov, 2017
  • offline last seen Oct 6th, 2023

AlexTFish


Christian steampunk optimist gamer brony...

E

When Twilight Sparkle's inventions are stolen, Sunset Shimmer and the Rainbooms try to track down the new master criminal in Canterlot. There's hacking, silly robots, social engineering, magical combat, and Twilight Sparkle getting annoyed about capital letters.

Not exactly a comedy, but a light-hearted action adventure story. Written for FOME's latest contest. Edited the day after publication to split into 5 chapters and apply a few images in chapter 4.

Cover art composited from this and this. Prereading by my lovely wife!

Chapters (5)
Comments ( 38 )

Of course human!Sunset would have megalomaniacal tendencies. Makes perfect sense.

And the giant kitchen droids are very much something that would appear in the show.

Nice story!

... Oh! Huh. The Sunsets' powers are similar! Cool! Each is technically breaking into private locations!

And now they're on similar paths!

Ri2

I like those animal names.

Does the cover art come from an EQG special?

Dreadnought

Ri2

Why a giant robot coffee machine? Why?

10489679
Oh, good point, I should list my sources in the description. No, I composited it myself from this screencap from Mad Twience and this clip from one of the EqG shorts. Applied a slight gradient darkening to try to fix the light levels a bit and make it look vaguely like Sunset's illuminated by the screen the same way Twilight is.

Ri2

It's things like this, Micro Chips, that proves Twilight really is your superior in every way.

10489684
Composited? You're going to have to teach me that trick.

Dreadnought

10489691
It's basically just using the Fuzzy Select tool in GIMP :) There are a few good tutorials out there: this one covers the basics nicely, and there's more advanced ones like this and this. And then just practice. :scootangel:

10489677
Yeah, having the sparrows be edgelords was a hilarious call.

This was a fun romp true to the spirit of EQG.

10489677
10490316
:pinkiehappy: Thank you! Yeah, it occurred to me that Fluttershy would call the animals by whatever their own names for themselves are, and it could be amusing if two different species (sparrows and dogs) have very different types of names for themselves .:raritywink:

Overall, this seemed very reminiscent of EqG. That's good, but also a mixed blessing, I think; the downsides being that the pacing is a little fast and the portrayal of tech (and the magic involved) leaves me scratching my head and internally debating things such as whether a magic stick with an allegedly "short range" could actually intercept and send text messages to a group chat.

Awwww...I just realised all the titles are song lines from the Rainbooms

So... once they had Fluttershy, what was stopping them from applying rainbow to face?

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t knock you to the ground right now,” she said through gritted teeth.
Micro Chips was backing away from her in a satisfying way. “Because… I thought you’d changed and weren’t doing that kind of thing any more?” he babbled.

"You're right."
"Phew."
"Now I only do that to people who deserve it."
"Um..."

Sunset frowned. “Our friends cancelled of their own accord.”

:facehoof: That was your own blasted deception, you stupid horse.

Can’t I just punch it?

The reaction of every green player met with air superiority.

It righted itself… but then wobbled unstably as it found its rotors getting tangled in extra thick strands of spider silk.

The other reaction of every green player met with air superiority. :ajsmug::yay:

Good stuff overall, especially the resolution. But as the comments attest, there were a few points where the characters had me tugging at my hair. Still, glad I finally got to this one. So sorry I missed until now. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.

10499358
Good question! I think because they were already feeling defeated, or something like that. My interpretation of the failed pony-up near the start of Rainbow Rocks has it that the girls have to be in a somewhat harmonious spirit before they can do that.

10499371
Heh. My excuse is, Sunset's only known of the existence of Sundown for a couple of days. She hasn't thought through what kinds of tricks she's likely to play yet.

I had been strongly considering ending this fic with Sundown on the run and vowing revenge in a "I'll get you next time!" kind of way, setting up for a sequel or series. In that case, subsequent stories would definitely have both Sunsets carefully thinking through the other's techniques and MO to be prepared for it.

10498237
Hehe. So since there isn't likely to be a sequel to this, I may as well explain here: Twilight's not quite right with her interpretation of Sunset's magic item's powers, but I never found a place to spell it out more precisely. The clue is that the pen was being used to forge letters. What it does is let Sundown perfectly pretend to be anyone else in communications, whether that's forging their signature, or getting anyone's password. Would that allow you to send messages to a group chat? I think so, assuming the chat isn't literally SMS but something with a web interface like WhatsApp or Facebook chat.

And as for pacing... I do get comments on several of my fics saying similar things. Amusingly, this fic was meant to have quite a bit more to it (while still fitting into 15k words for the contest), and then after I cut it down it was meant to have a third action scene before I combined the last two. I guess I still don't quite know how to write short stories :twilightsmile:

I'll very happily take any comparisons to EqG though, because that's exactly what I was going for :pinkiesmile:

10499378
Haha. AJ being the ground pounder frustrated with the utility flying creature, and Fluttershy having the spider spells... Yep, makes sense to me.

I'm so glad you enjoyed it. And you definitely don't need to apologise for "only" reading it a week after it was published! Thanks for reading and commenting, and I'm glad the resolution worked for you. And thank you for running the contest without which I wouldn't have written it! :pinkiehappy:

This was good. Not the biggest fan of how Micro-Chips was portrayed here, but other than that quite good (especially for something written for a contest). I will say the whole pen thing makes a lot more sense now that you've explained it. Then again I was using my go to view (that it's "Magic") to interpret it, so it didn't really interfere with my enjoyment of the story that much.

Gripping, and a headcanon I am more than willing to accept :) You write action really well!

10499363
Pre-reformation angry-for-no-reason Sunset is hard to watch after the character grows on you by the end of the Rainbow Rocks....

....post-reformation angry-for-incredibly-good-reasons Sunset on the other hand :rainbowwild:

“A little bird told me,”

👈👈

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

All that setup with the birds and dogs just so you could sneak "a little bird told me" in there. XD Priceless.

I also love how the birds clearly named themselves (and are edgelords) while the dogs seem content to take on the names they've been given. :)

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Six girls caught each other’s eyes. Six geodes flashed. Six superheroes floated into the air.

Oh yeah. :D This is the good stuff!

I am so glad 'Sundown' has no idea what's going on with the other her. That is remarkably refreshing!

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Sunset smashed a fist onto the desk next to Micro Chips’s experiment. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t knock you to the ground right now,” she said through gritted teeth.

Yes! Bully him! :D

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Oh wow, and what a good ending! :D

10850042
Thank you very much for reading and commenting! I do love it when readers leave a comment after each chapter. I'm very glad you enjoyed it! :pinkiehappy:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

10854389
And then I realized I've read and reviewed all of your stories to date but never followed you, so I fixed that! :D

This enjoyable experience was faithful to the essence of the "My Little Pony: Equestria Girls" franchise. It was full of fun and entertainment, and celebrated the values this franchise is known for.


William thomas
Professional Jewelry Retoucher

what i don't really understand is, if sundown has all these arrest warrants, why isn't sunset having problems with the law and mistaken identities

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