Canterlot was not what you would call a quiet city. Ponies were always bustling around going about their business. The guards were always patrolling, looking for any sign of danger. And of course day court was in session.
Day court was where anypony could come in to the castle and petition to Princess Celestia. Anypony from the poorest farmer, to the richest duke, could come and question a law or have an argument settled about ownership of land.
It may sound boring to you. Sitting in a throne all day listening to other ponies problems, but Celestia actually enjoyed it. She always wanted to find a way to help ponies with their problems. It was just another day in her kingdom.
The only problem was that bad news always seemed to come during court. A pegasus guard came running through the doors, a panicked look on his face.
He ran to the throne and bowed respectfully to Celestia.
“Is their a problem?” Celestia inquired.
“A rare bird was spotted just north of Canterlot, apparently it hasn't been seen for years.”
Celestia's raised an eyebrow. “What be the colors of it's feathers.”
The guard gulped before responding “Black as night.”
Celestia's eyes widened. “I see.” She turned to the ponies who had gathered to speak with her. “Attention everypony. I apologize, but something of urgency has come and day court is canceled. You, come with me.” She commanded to the guard.
As they walked out of the room she pointed at another guard “You. Tell my sister to meet me in the green room.”
Rare bird, black feather, and green room were all code words for an emergency. They were created by Celestia, Luna, and the royal guard to avoid a panic in case of emergency. Black feathers was for high alert criminals, who were considered extremely dangerous.
Celestia and the guard ran towards the 'green room', which was the code name for the war room. Luna was already waiting for them when they arrived.
“What is going on?” She questioned Celestia.
“A rare bird was spotted just north of Canterlot”
Luna scrowled “It's feathers?”
“Black as night” Celestia replied grimly.
Luna's jaw dropped and she covered her mouth with one hoof. “Are you sure? Can it really be her? After all these years, I thought she would be dead.”
''Commander Silver has briefed me on what has happened.” Celestia said while motioning to the who had alerted her. “The damage could only be done by her. Commander. Please explain to Luna what you told me.”
The guard had grown pale, but nodded. “We were contacted by a local town a few hundred miles north. They had reported a cloaked mare coming into the local tavern and murdered several ponies inside. I took several pegasus with me and we checked it out. The bar was a mess. We counted 8 killed and over a dozen injured. Those who weren't dead were in shock.”
He took a moment to catch his breath. “Those who were killed were...
He stared into space. The moment to horrible to put to words.
Celestia put a hoof on his shoulder “It's fine was their anything else?”
He nodded. “There was one stallion, who was catatonic. He was shivering and wouldn't let anyone touch him. He was repeating the same name over and over again.”
“Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia finished
Sadness filled Luna's eyes. “What do we do Celestia?”
Celestia looked down refusing to meet Luna's eyes. “The only thing we can Luna. We will most likely have to kill her. She can't be controlled. I don't want to have to kill anypony, but she might not even be in control. But the problem is who do we send to stop her. We can't just send regular guards. They would be killed. I would prefer someone who could capture, but kill if necessary.”
Luna thought for a moment. “Follow me. I have an idea.”
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They entered the barracks for the guards. The building was deceptively large. From the outside it looked to be a large mansion, but on the inside it went down another 3 levels underground. As they walked through the building guards bowed in respect. One guard who was wearing gold and purple armor walked up to the princesses.
“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna. This is an unexpected pleasure. What brings you to the barracks?”
Celestia met his eyes, a grim look clouding her features. “I'm sorry Captain Armor. News came from town north of Canterlot. She is alive and she is coming back.”
The stallion removed his helmet. He was a bleached white unicorn stallion with a multi blue hued mane and tail. A look of pain and sorrow on his face. “T-Twily is a-alive?
Luna spoke “Yes, but we are taking no chances. Apparently she was spotted at a tavern in the north lands. 8 were killed and many more injured. We came to get HER. I believe she is the best one for the mission.”
A scowl crossed Shining's face. “Yes. That makes sense. Come see for your self though. Your timing couldn't have been better. She is in the dojo now.
They walked down a set of stairs. “We had to move her to the largest dojo available. The others are still under repair from her last training battle.” Shining remarked. “She may be powerful, but she has little control. Here we are.”
They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and walked through a door to a huge room.
The room was at least 50 yards long, and 30 wide. It had 3 levels with balconies so the other guards could watch the fight. They were on the 3rd balcony looking down on multiple guards wearing full armor. There were 14 of them all gathered in a circle around a pegasus mare. She wore black armor with moon emblems on the helmet and chest piece. Her helmet had violet and maroon hair sticking out from the top, and she was sitting with her eyes closed. She had two long knives strapped to her sides.
The other guards stood at least 10 yards from her, their weapons at the ready. They were a mix of earth ponies, peagasi, and unicorns. They stood in crouched stances waiting for the battle to begin.
There was silence in the air for a few moments. No one moved. No one spoke.
The silence lingered.
…
…
…
“BEGIN!” A guard shouted. A gong sounded, and the 14 attacked.
They drew their weapons holding them with teeth, magic, and wings, and they charged. The mare waited. Not moving. The others grew close, and when they were just a few feet away her eyes snapped open. Her armored wings shot open and she held one knife in her mouth.
The others brought their weapons down on her. Her wings snapped up, and their was silence again.
From the spectators point of view it looked as if she had been skewered, but the attacking guards new what had happened. The mare spun in a circle throwing off the guards and she alighted. She waited until they had all stood and recovered their weapons before attacking.
Her wings sprung to life and she began zipping around the room at an unnatural speed. Her body blurring, she flew past each guard striking with her knife or her wings.
"Interesting. She even uses her body as a weapon.” Celestia noted
Luna smirked. “That's why she is one of my top night guards and assassins. She has incredible speed and precision, and she can analyze the enemy quickly. She is perfect.”
The mare flew directly at a unicorn holding a sword with his magic and a knife with his teeth. They clashed blades, and dueled for a moment. The mare clearly toying with him. They dueled for another moment before she swept his legs out from under him and bucked him into a wall.
The battle continued on like this for a few more minutes. The mare flying around and landing small strikes on the others, before sending them flying one by one. Soon there were only 4 left. They grouped together hoping that they could fight her off together instead of being taken out one by one.
She hovered in the air for a moment using her front hooves to pull two round objects out from underneath her armor.
She threw one at their feet and released a huge puff of smoke. A smoke grenade. And threw another into the cloud. A small explosion and a flash of light came from the cloud, a flash bang. The remaining guards screamed from inside before the mare flew in. The sound of clashing blades and grunts could be heard from inside the cloud.
Just a few moments later the mare walked out of the cloud. Her knives sheathed. The cloud cleared and showed the remaining 4 guards battered and knocked out.
The mare looked up to the crowd and saw the princesses watching her. She flew up to the balcony, and bowed before the royalty after removing her helmet. “Princess Luna. Princess Celestia. I wasn't aware you would be here.”
“Rise Wing Commander Dash. We have a mission for you of utmost importance.
The Mare lifted her head to reveal a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane.
She flashed a toothy grin to the princesses. “Well then. Lets not waste any time.
“It's fine was their anything else?”
Should be: "It's fine. Was there anything else?”
Otherwise, assassin captain Rainbow Dash = best pony
Add what's in red but the Blue is optional, other than that I'm liking this story!
You good sir owe me a new laptop do to the awesomeness of the story
I like where this is going :D
A few grammatical errors here and there, but it was easy to read.
...been skewered, but the attacking guards knew what had happened.
1927738>>1926947
Thank you. I'm kinda lazy so it might take a day or two, but I will fix those error. Thanks for telling me.
1927549>>1926838
Glad you guy's like the story so much. The whole idea with this story was to give a new spin on the characters we love so much. We've seen crazy Twilight (In the show and the fics) but I wanted to make a psycho Twilight, with other qualities (Future chapters)
But in short, glad you like it, more to come
1928535 No problem, If you need a pre-reader to check for stuff like grammar and punctuation I'd be more than willing to help out in any way I can.
“Is their a problem?” Celestia inquired.
Should be 'there' instead of 'their'.
Otherwise, I liked it. Can't wait to see why they're so tense about Twilight.
SORRY GUYS MY BAD
The ediitor (me) got caught up with random stuff
I also changed a few settings on my email so that emails from fimfiction would be re-routed to a separate folder, so story updates wouldn't clutter up my inbox as much..
But evidently that was a bad idea as I missed my messages
So...I have been reading some comments on toning down the badass-itude on Twilight, dood...it made me think:
Seeing as most people aren't that bothered except like 2 or 3 people... I say, let him write the story as he wants...
1929623
It's okay. I have had multiple people offer to help me, so there was no shortage.
1930832
Dafuq did I just watch?????
Im sorry that i didn't do so much correction
1931117
Meh. It's okay. No matter what happens the commenters always make me aware of mistakes, so honestly no harm done.
1931179 Thanks
1931083 You just witnessed the almighty Joe, dood.
1931815
Congratulations. That explained nothing
1931911 Alright, fine, dood.
What you saw is a flash animation made by a guy the internet calls Joecartoon, he has been making flash cartoons since before Youtube or even Newgrounds came along, and specialized in cartoons that had crud humor and tongue-in-cheek violence. He is responsible for cartoons like "Live or Let Dive", "Gerbil in the Microwave", or Frog in a Blender" and one of the original pioneers of flash animation.
What you saw was Joe and his friends playing country music, while a Monkey in a Fez sang about how animators, artists, or authors shouldn't let a small number of people tell them how to animate/draw/write their stuff and just do it your way.
1931950
You do realize I am a single author with one set editor right?
1931955 well...you asked, dood
1931960
1931974 It's fine, don;t worry about it.... I think the song works decently for anyone that writes/animates/draws regardless of reputation. You are stressing over nothing, dood.
1931988
aight.
rainbow dash vs twilight sparkle MORTAL COMBAT ready fight
1932514
Soon
dashie a guard didnt see that coming, and how is luna there with no twilight there is no elements? but i was correct bout dash tho im watching
I just realized Octavia is tagged for this story...
I wonder what role she will have.....
also, this is just a complete guess, but...seeing how its labeled romance........Twilight and Rainbow Dash.......?
Which would be very interesting to see play out since Dash is being sent to kill her.............just a random guess though...
Although now i'm doubting my guess, because you probably would have labeled it shipping.....
1935468
Ooooh. Looks like someone is partially piecing the story together . Yes Octavia is in this story but her role will come later.
1935010
Alternate universe.
This got better, especcially with the romance about to bloom. some stories have this type of relation. Soon....
1942877
I love the speculations you guy's have. Romance with who though??
1947178
Why not it be with the badasses of the opposite spectrum. One who kills with magic and taunting and the other with precision and strength.
1948227
I wish I could talk about this stuff, but then I would spoil and that would m ark me as a crappy writer. It is extremely difficult to not talk about this, but that's not a good theory
1949283
Of it's hard that's why you tell it in a story.
1949414
First thing" What?
Second: That should be. That's not a bad theory
1949425
My bad fast typing, meant to say Of course it's hard to not tell people or readers in this case the plot of the story.
1949525
Yea. Especially when they are waiting a long period of time and I have several chapters written in advance. It's like seeing a movie in advance, but you can't talk about it.
It's killing me
1936447
Anything goes in Alternate Universe!
1951612
Damn Straight.
1952456 False, you still have to ground it in the original thing you're AUing or it's just fiction rather than fanfiction. Change too much and you force the readers to throw out all assumptions that going along with using something else's canon, which either creates a bad story, or forces you to treat everything like it's brand-new-never-before-seen and establish it all by yourself.
On that note, I felt like this is at risk of drifting into OOC territory; Equestria is still relatively docile and I have a hard time believing that the government would employ "assassins" (Luna's words).
1957277 Are wars canon? Are wars in character?
Naww....
But many great fanfics have elements of war.
1962049 True, but the great stories that have war as a major point also have lots of build up and progression to the wars (for 2 examples, in Fallout: Equestria it's shown that there were massive resource struggles combined with the fact that ponies were unfamiliar with war, and so didn't know what they were getting into, and in The Immortal Game, canon Equestria is the way it is because Celestia and Luna absolutely did not want to be like their parents).
So far in this, things seem fundamentally the same, except that NMM apparently didn't happen, which I would argue would actually cause a more docile Equestria because one the major conflict points in history suddenly isn't there.
1962080 Yet Fallout isn't labeled AU.
1962157 Huh... So it isn't. Still I suppose that makes sense, given the setting hundreds of years post-FiM, it doesn't count as AU (i.e. it doesn't ever directly contradict canon).
Edit: Regardless of semantics, my example still applies because of the effort that goes into establishing the world and events. Everything in FoE is logically justified given the historical events.
1962190 One main example of AU I can think of is something like Nightmares Don't Last Forever (though that doesn't actually have an AU tag..). There's also R63 fics or something like Scootamom..
Or something like Phoenix Wright: Turnabout Storm.
1962254 But none of those have what I brought up in the first place, in NDLF, everything stems from the original Point of Divergence well and there's never anything that seems out of place given circumstances, R63s are generally fundamentally the same as canon (gender differences aside), and Scootamom... I've got nothing on that one, not familiar enough with it.
Rainbow being employed by the Guard isn't that much of a stretch (depending on how you want to consider the Wonderbolts), but being one of Luna's "top night guards and assassins" is, on the grounds that we've so far seen no justifiable reason for the princesses to have assassins. Not to say that this couldn't be fixed by backstory added in the future, but as it stands, this doesn't feel believable.
Excerpt from one of WandererD's How To blogs.
1962310 The excerpt was more about character personality. I have no idea how the author's going to go with character personality; I hope he keeps that aspect canon. Otherwise, though, Dash being an assassin is less about personality and more about the world conditions.
1962326 It still applies to other things though (in this case, the employment of assassins by the princesses), although this could fall under character personality because Celestia and Luna (or at least Luna) would have to be at least ethically and morally tolerant (if not supportive) of government-sanctioned murder (assassination), which is a pretty big personality modification.
1962342
The way I see it is that in the show they have the guards to protects the people from any threat; Sombra, changelings, NMM, Discord, ect. That means that, While we rarely see it their are still threats like the dragons, diamond dogs, and the griffons. Since Luna is princess of the night I figured it would be fitting for her to have a team of assassins, for night ops, and for all around protection. Kind of like the marines, they are an elite squad for times of great threat.
1962326: I will keep Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash, just with a few changes, so she is still the fun loving daredevil we know, but she also knows control and some order.
Hope this clears it up for you guys
I don't normally comment on a story before reading everything that's been posted, but I'm going to have to because this chapter (chapter 2) just kills it for me. Now, I have no problem with grimdark worlds or powerful characters; I clicked on this story to read about a wild Twilight, after all. The problem is, the way you introduce the characters by what they can do rather than who they are, their personalities, any information as to why they're different from their canon counterparts, etc. just makes the narrative feel like you described Twilight: soulless. There is a time and place for such things, but I'm going to say that using them for introductions of characters the audience is supposed to connect with and stay interested in is not it.
I'm not going to downvote the story, since it's clear you're trying and have probably put quite a bit of effort into it. I just hope my comment will make you look a little closer into how you develop your characters in the future.
just want to stress the point that this is so far pretty epic, and i'm definitely interested, however I just want to voice, though this is no fault of the author, or anyone for that matter... but am I the only one who's sick to death of RD being portrayed as this ridiculously over the top badass in everything, like these assassins creed crossovers that are appearing everywhere? I don't even dislike her, it just always reads as being utterly ridiculous in my mind. and yeah, i'm sure someone's going to start flaming for this