“Of course!”, each sister of the trio replied. “What do you need help with?”.
Each of the Crusaders explained their dire situation to their siblings.
“He did WHAT?!”, Rainbow Dash exclaimed in total shock.
“I know. I could hardly believe it myself. It just didn’t feel real.”, Scootaloo agreed.
----
“Now I’ve heard a lot of crazy stuff in my life, but that’s gotta be one of the craziest things I’ve heard.”, Applejack told Apple Bloom.
“I’m still wrapping my head around it. It’s just so unbelievable.”, Apple Bloom said.
----
“Why, no sorcerer does that to my little sister!”, Rarity said.
“Well, this one did.”, Sweetie Belle corrected her big sister. “None of us are happy about it.”, Sweetie added, stating the obvious.
After regrouping, the Crusaders and their respective sisters notified Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie about their situation. If they were going to fix this, they would need the help of their friends as well.
“Wow, I never thought we’d have to deal with another magical unmarking.”, Twilight stated while recalling their visit to Starlight Glimmer’s town. Their experience with this strange occurrence undoubtedly meant for an easier time than when they themselves had their cutie marks taken away. However, they knew that this was still different.
“Yeah, except this is happening with the girls now!”, Applejack told Twilight.
“I’m aware. We have to be careful. Who knows how different this sorcerer is from Starlight”. Twilight told Applejack and the others.
“I just can’t believe he’d want to do such a thing. These little fillies worked so hard to earn their cutie marks. I still remember the day they got them, and that was the happiest day of their lives. Now, he’s just going to take that away from them?”, Fluttershy commented on their predicament.
The Crusaders had been right behind them the entire time, and hearing about their accomplishment and the joy that they felt in that moment only made them feel more depressed and upset.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t meant to…” Fluttershy tried to apologize, but couldn’t find the right words.
“It’s okay, Fluttershy. You were just as confused as we were at the time.”, Sweetie Belle reassured the pegasus.
“We can’t keep being confused and upset at this.”, Rainbow Dash said. “All that matters is that we take it to that sorcerer and get those girls their cutie marks back!”.
“Yeah!”, Scootaloo agreed, finally mustering up a smile.
“Alright!”, Apple Bloom followed suit.
“Sure.”, Sweetie Belle agreed. Though, she was the most hesitant of them all. She couldn’t shake the bad feelings she got from the sorcerer, even without taking the unmarking into account.
Finally reaching the sorcerer’s lair, Twilight undid the magical barrier that guarded the entrance and trotted up to the sorcerer with her friends, and the Crusaders behind her.
“I’ve heard that you stole the cutie marks of three young fillies. I highly suggest you return them to their rightful owners.”, Twilight demanded the sorcerer.
“Princess Twilight”, the sorcerer addressed the alicorn. “I’ve heard about your little run-in with Starlight Glimmer before. How you managed to turn her over to your side and make her give up her evil ways. Whatever trick you were planning to make me give up these intriguing marks isn’t going to work”.
“Then, I guess we’ll have to do things the hard way.”, Rainbow Dash said.
Engaging into battle, the six ponies rushed the sorcerer. The Crusaders were secured in a spot where they would remain unharmed while their big sisters and the others tried regaining what the fillies lost.
The sorcerer faced little challenge as he quickly dispatched each pony. Whether it be via his incredible magic, cunning that allowed him to outsmart them, or the comparatively rudimentary method of a melee assault via his cane.
“Now, I’ll say this once and one time only: Get out of my lair”.
“We’re not going until you give us out cutie marks back!”, Scootaloo suddenly spoke up to the surprise of everypony there.
“Yeah!”, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle agreed simultaneously.
“An act of defiance? Fine. Then, I shall whisk you away and out of my lair as I did before. And you can just be content with never seeing your precious cutie marks ever again”.
The last sentence struck a major chord with each of the Crusaders. Before they could process it, they were once again forced out of his lair.
“Never see our cutie marks again?”, Sweetie Belle asked incredulously.
“He was joking, right?”, Scootaloo asked.
“I hope he was. I can’t imagine not bein’ able to help any more ponies. I can’t accept that. I just can’t. Not after everything we did to get to that point.”, Apple Bloom said, nearly on the verge of tears.
“Don’t worry, girls. We’ll be with you every step of the way to help you get those cutie marks back. That’s a promise.”, Twilight reassured the three fillies as her friends gathered around her.
The journey to get the Crusaders’ cutie marks back was going to be a long one, but it’s nothing that can’t be accomplished with a little teamwork.
I realize that this is your first story, but this has some major issues that I would really recommend you address. The most glaring issue is probably the pacing, which moves at lightning speed and feels hollow for how little detail there is. This is not helped by the incredibly short length of the chapters, which could have easily been consolidated into two to provide better flow.
Aside from those structural issues, there's also a major plot hole in the actions of your villain character. I was under the impression that you were trying to keep him and his motivations mysterious, which could definitely have worked, and yet you provided way too much detail for that to work out. I, as a reader, am shown this character's actions and thoughts in detail, and yet I don't even know what his motivations are, or why he even did what he did. Seriously, why go through the trouble of spying on the CMCs and creating illusory doubles of their sisters if you can just whisk them away like he did?
As a final point, when you want to break up scenes, you can just use the horizontal rule (there's a button for it in the chapter editor). You don't need to use em dashes, or worse, start a whole new chapter.
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I will address all your criticisms.
1. I most definitely agree. The pacing is all over the place, and I have thought about how to work that out. I address my reasons for why the pacing is the way it is in the Author’s Notes, but I didn’t want long stretches of nothing happening in the chapters. However, I guess that has happened while reading them over.
2. The villain character I’ve created is one that I don’t envision as a cackling, mustache-twirling, gloating character. Just a calculating and intelligent individual who just does what he wants to do with no nonsense.
As for the deal with the illusory sisters, I would just like to admit that I am in no way proud of that part. It was far, far too rushed and lacking in explanation that I don’t want to write something like it ever again. To answer your question, he needed to be absolutely sure the girls would be able to fall for his trap. He knew the girls weren’t gullible enough to just follow him into his lair. What better way to get to them than by using their sisters?
I will keep these issues in mind for future chapters and attempt to better my story by fixing them. Thank you for the constructive criticism.