Book 2: Equestria Lost
Chapter 16
“Twilight, wait up!”
Twilight Sparkle turned around to see Sunny lagging behind. She slowed her pace to let the short-legged little filly catch up, but she still kept on trotting down the street, scanning buildings as she passed by. Manehattan was a challenge, of course, given its huge size and complicated streets, but slowly, methodically, she had been getting it completely scanned.
Like most of the cities she had been to so far, Manehattan showed some signs of life... nowhere near the bustle that should be here, but occasionally she would pick up a few ponies in her scan of a building. Strangely though, the ponies in this town weren't rushing out to greet her... they stayed safe and hidden inside their homes. What were the ponies of this city so afraid of? There didn't seem to be anything wrong; in fact, this city seemed to be in better shape than most she had been to... no major signs of damage to buildings, no corpses in the road. What had them so scared?
Yet again shrugging it off, Twilight resolved to find a few and ask them... once she was done with her scan. It wouldn't be long now; she only had a few more blocks to go... which might explain how her pace had picked up in eagerness. Finally, Sunny caught up next to her, going at a full run to keep up with Twilight's still-fast trot... but the filly didn't complain – Twilight couldn't ask for a better companion for her search.
Turning what would be the last corner, Twilight came to a dead stop. “Miss me?” A sultry voice asked from above.
Twilight and Sunny both looked up in horror to see a draconequus hovering above them. Gripped with fear, Twilight fired off a fast teleportation spell, only to reappear right back where she and Sunny had started. As she looked in the direction she had tried to go, she could see a ripple of light traveling upwards and outwards... a spherical shell around the whole city block, trapping Twilight and Sunny inside.
Twilight backed away fearfully as the draconequus edged closer. “Not this time, precious pony.” her voice slid disconcertingly into Twilight's ears. “This time, you're mine!”
In desperation, Twilight fired off a bright flare of unfocused magical light, quickly running off with Sunny as the blinded monster cried out in pain and surprise. She rounded the corner again and headed down the street, only to quickly be stopped short by the spherical shield cutting across it. She took Sunny with her, ducking into an alley quickly before the draconequus came around the corner.
“There's no escape this time, little one,” that horribly smooth voice came through again, “So just keep running! I like the taste of fear in a pony!”
Twilight knew Pestilence was wrong... she could escape, but she would need more time... she needed a distraction.
* * *
Sunny Daze ran out into the street, catching Pestilence's attention just as Twilight had planned. Quickly taking off into a run, she led the draconequus away, giving Twilight the time she needed to complete her spell. The filly couldn't run terribly fast though, and she had no wings to compete with those of the draconequus. She quickly succumbed to the monster's greater speed, Pestilence grabbing her around the middle with one giant eagle claw and holding the screaming filly above her head like a prize.
“Oh Twilight Sparkle! Come out Twilight Sparkle! Come out and I'll let your friend to live!”
* * *
With one final grunt of concentration, Twilight put the final parts of her spell in place. Pestilence had trapped her in here with a three dimensional sphere... but Twilight Sparkle was as well-educated as she was magical... she knew there were more dimensions than that. Holding Sunny close, she walked up to the edge of the sphere, and horn glowing, she simply stepped around it. To somepony watching form the outside, she might have seemed to vanish for a moment and reappear on the other side, something that should be impossible with a magical shield of this kind... but not impossible for a unicorn as well-studied as Twilight!
Confident now, Twilight led Sunny back to the street through another alleyway, so they could see Pestilence still inside the shield, holding Sunny Daze aloft. They drew the creature's attention with a friendly wave before Twilight removed the power from her illusion spell. The Sunny Daze in Pestilence's grip suddenly vanished, leaving her talon to close on a quickly dispersing cloud of yellow dust. Before the draconequus could even cry out in rage, Twilight and Sunny vanished from the street, teleporting away.
* * *
1890574
I'll decline to speculate on who the new elements of harmony are...
(Though -- between you and me -- you can expect to find out at the end of book 2.)
1885817
Hmm... the last several (and the next few) chapters have been alternating between two character groups.
Apollo and his team, headed back to civilization, and Twilight and Sunny looking for her friends.
Don't worry. Soon (spoiler -- though it should be obvious to anyone familiar with fiction) the two groups will meet, and there will be no more alternating chapters, and perhaps then the story will be easier to follow...
Or was it something else that was confusing?
1879298
Must have done something right.
If it enlightens anyone about it... at the very early stages of planning this, I had intended basically on writing only book 3, focusing on the rebuilding of Equestria... The first two books are, in a way, an afterthought, also giving the story of how it fell in the first place, and how our protagonists dealt with it.
(Of course, once I decided to write that, I made it part of an inseparable whole. The first two books are hardly an afterthought now, though their main functions are still to set the stage for book 3.)
Thanks!
This is actually the first serious fiction of any kind I've written -- written before my other fic here, even though that one was posted first -- and though I always intended the story to change and grow as I went along, the development as an author was a side effect. And yes, despite my efforts to revise and improve early chapters, I can also clearly see the development as I went along. (Hopefully that's a good sign for future fics )
In due time, hopefully everyone will see it that way. ^.^
Although I suspect I already know some of them, which parts were rushed, and which things were hard to understand?
...Though I don't intend on revising this story any more, knowing things like that would be invaluable for helping me to write better fiction in the future.
The zebra is in the first few chapters of book 1. I keep my promises!
...And I'd also be very interested to see which point you perceived as the pace of the story rising considerably... I have a couple ideas about which part you mean, but I'm not sure which.
And thanks for all the compliments!
And thanks even more for the detailed feedback! Stuff like this is the reason I write and publish here!
...
...
Uh...
...
I'll just leave this here.
Okay, that was just impressive.
9111276
This old thing?
^.^ Thanks! What's your favorite thing about it?