The Red Ring...

by Roost2100

A fast one

It was like any other day in Ponyville. Rarity was making dresses for her new fashion line. Rainbow Dash was training with the Wonderbolts while Scotaloo was looking up to watch the show. Pinkie Pie was making cakes and other pastries while managing the counter at Sugercube Corner, making everypony smile smile smile smile and sunshine sunshine as usual. Applejack was with her little sister, Apple Bloom, at Sweet Apple Acres harvesting the apples. Fluttershy and Discord were having tea together. Then there was Twilight, practicing a spell on a golden ring she found recently while Spike was in the background, reading the latest issue of a comic series he started reading recently about a super speedy earth pony and his friends taking down a smart alicorn who wanted to take over Equestria.

"Dang it!" Twilight grunts out of frustration as she has failed the spell once again.

She looked at the ring, noting that nothing had changed, she then looked over to Spike who was still sitting there reading his comic.

"It'd be way easier if you were helping me here, Spike!" Twilight said rolling her eyes.

"But you said, 'I got this. I can master this spell in no time since it's small. So your help will not be needed,' and here I am, reading my comic," Spike said, knowing that he was right.

Twilight groaned, “Fine! Is there something I’m doing wrong?"

Twilight pulled out Star Swirl’s book on the spell and looked it over what seemed like a million times, but the words were not registering.

"I did everything right. Why isn't it working?" she said, face-hoofing herself.

2 hours later, Twilight’s sudden yell resonated throughout her castle, not knowing the sun was already beginning to set.

"YES, I FOUND IT! AFTER SO MANY TRIES, I NOW KNOW MY ERROR!"

"I’m happy for you Twilight..." Spike said, being startled awake by Twilight’s outburst.

"Thanks, Spike, now I should be able to do this spell," she says before making her horn glow.

She then fired a beam at the ring, and as she did so, the whole room was filled with black smoke. Twilight's face was covered in the leftover ash when it dissipated, leaving her coughing and sputtering.

"Twilight?... what happened?" Spike said, now fully awake from the loud explosion.

Twilight wiped the ash off her face before looking back at the ring. It was still smoking slightly, so she waved her hoof to clear it. When it faded away, she saw that the ring had turned red, and a wide smile spread on her face.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” she shouted, making Spike cover his ears.

Twilight started hopping around with excitement, now having finally done the spell after so many tries. She then picked up the ring with her magic and held it to her face to examine it. She then looked back at Star Swirl's notes.

"There's something else in here. It says once you have a Red Ring, throw it up in the air and watch as you are tested on your skills and try to win the Gol-" she was interrupted by Spike suddenly belching, fire spreading everywhere and burning the page.

"MY BOOK!!" Twilight cried, looking with a horrified face as the rest of the page was burnt to a crisp. "Now I will never know what the rest of this means!"

Spike rubbed the back of his neck as he chuckled nervously before saying, “Sorry, Twilight, it just came out of nowhere. I never meant for it to burn your book like that.”

“It’s okay, Spike. I understand that it was an accident,” Twilight said before looking back at the burnt page as Spike picked up the ring. "Uh, what did it say to do with this again? It was something about throwing the ring in the air and how you'll be tested by something."

"Maybe we should call the girls to help us, that way, whatever this test is we all can do it together!" Spike smiled after finishing his suggestion.

"That's not a bad idea. Good thinking, Spike," Twilight said as she got off the ground and went out to find her friends.

---

"So why in the hay are we here again?" Applejack asked while picking the ring up and looking at it quizzically.

The mane six were now in the throne room, discussing what to do with the ring.

"I have Wonderbolt practice in a few minutes, so this better be quick," Rainbow Dash said, tapping her hoof on the ground impatiently.

"Don't worry, this won't take very long,” Twilight replied before she began explaining, “I've found a spell that Starswirl made for... three tests? I think... I couldn't read it all since somepony had to burp up a firestorm!" She shot Spike an accusing glare before continuing her explanation, "And now I thought we could try and find out how it works together."

The group of friends looked at one another and back to Twilight before Applejack spoke up, "Okay then let's see what we got here-"

She was cut off by Pinkie grabbing the ring with her curly mane and putting it up to her face while wearing a detective hat and examining it with a magnifying glass.

"Hm, nope! Looks like any other ring to me," she said, not helping the case at all.

“Maybe if you try to remember the last part of Star Swirl's text, it could give us a better hint at what to do," Fluttershy suggested to Twilight as Pinkie tossed the ring to her, not noticing that it sparked a little as it moved. Twilight picked it up with her magic and examined it before handing it back to Fluttershy.

"So, what was the last part you read of Star Swirl’s scroll?" Rarity asked.

Twilight thought for a moment before answering, "It said something about tossing it in the air, I think?"

The ring was suddenly snatched by Rainbow, "Come on! It’s just a ring! Is this over? Because I’m going to be late for my workouts if I stay here any longer... Rarity what can you do with this?"

As Dash tossed the ring to Rarity, it sparked some more almost as if it was charging up.

"I do fashion, darling,” Rarity replied, “I don't know anything about jewelry."

She tossed it back to Twilight, the ring now sparkling like crazy

"Woah... girls I don't know what we did but whatever we did has made the ring glow and have red sparkles around it..." Twilight commented, a concerned look plastered on her face.

Dash then grabbed it again and threw it to the other side of the room before sneering, "Oh please, it's just a silly little red ring. Sure it has sparks around it, but I’m sure it's just a flashy cheap product that Star Swirl fell for and bought, then just forgot about it or something. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got Wonderbolts practice to attend to."

Before she could fly off, the ring had fully charged, It flew up into the air and grew bigger. The next thing the 7 of them knew was a huge flash of light, making them go blind for two seconds. After they opened their eyes, they looked up to see the ring floating in the air almost touching the ceiling.

"Holy Celestia," they all said at the same time.

Before they could say anything else, 7 gloved hands came out and reached to each one of them.

Dash yelped as she tried to fly away, only to be stopped by one of the hands and was pulled into the ring, struggling to break free in the process.

Pinkie and Fluttershy were the next to go, both screaming while Fluttershy closed her wings around her to protect herself.

Rarity soon followed suit, and not even her magic could stop the hand from grabbing her, at least she managed to keep her mane intact.

Applejack and Spike then got dragged in, and they went down trying to fight back.

Twilight was then faced with the last hand. She blasted magic beams, but spell after spell, it continued to resist.

After using most of her energy to hold back the hand, she was grabbed and dragged into the ring portal. As she went through, she screamed out for help, only for the ring portal to shrink back down to a normal ring.

As the portal closed, a faint, deep, and menacing laugh could be heard throughout the castle. The worst part, was nobody else heard it as the ring clanked on the ground, like nothing had happened.

Comments

[KaijuFan2023]

a faint laugh could be heard.

Ah, shi-

[Rainbow sparkle1]

I’m calling it right now based on the too slow from the description, the red ring, and the large amount of arms that came out of the ring…

Sonic.EXE

BTW, not to be rude, but this is incredibly hard to read. There’s barely any paragraph breaks for when different characters are speaking, the punctuation is almost nonexistent, and the cussing for the narration doesn’t feel necessary. Luckily, I can fix all of that! If you want I can help you edit this story and make it more appealing for future readers! What do you say?

[Roost2100]

11819022
mmmh how soo I do see the cursing thing is not really needed

[Rainbow sparkle1]

11819646
I can format the story in my own style, give better grammar, and make it way easier to read. You can still write the story, I’ll just edit and fix a few things in the story and remove some things that may not be necessary. Trust me, more readers will find your story appealing if you have an editor like me to help make the story easier to read.

[Roost2100]

11821473
Very well then, but how will you be able to do it like copy the story and do it somewhere else or what?

[Rainbow sparkle1]

11821954
You can DM me the original version and I'll copy and paste it into a Google doc. Once I finish editing, I'll DM you the finished product. Then you can copy and paste the edited version into the story and post it.

[Roost2100]

11822351
oh alright, you got Discord right?

[Roost2100]

11830686
its gonna be more of a sunny day so hitch a ride and don't really pip at anything while you're on it so zipp past the izzy plants that will most likey give you a rash

[Rainbow sparkle1]

11831354
The way you referenced the G5 characters was amazing! Something I never would’ve thought of.